Blood Spirits

  “A cell?”

  “Not a dungeon cell, if that’s what you’re thinking. The Dominicans are an active order, and so they’re not often in their rooms. A bed, a trunk, a plain table. Small, austere, but comfortable. I had a sleeping bag on the floor. But my father and I spent our happiest hours ranging about the country, then talking our day over in the long summer evenings. The Germans had left the Dominicans alone, and after a few rough years the Soviet commander, and the MGB, considered the Dominicans too boring to cause trouble, and so never bothered them with searches. Later, when I began coming to Dobrenica alone, or with Tony and Honoré and some of the others, we sometimes camped out in our cell, eating food we’d smuggled up, the lighting a single candle, as we gassed on about how we were going to chuck the Soviets out of the country.” He stopped and shrugged.

  “Go on.”

  “Not much more to say. By the time I got my house back, it felt like just another stopping place. When I became Statthalter I had three offices, two official and one unofficial—a cubby in the Council building, which was so old and badly heated the Soviets only used it for storage. They ignored that part of the city except for gatherings in Sobieski Square, or as they called it then, the People’s Square. Not that the people ever used that name, except derisively.”

  “Oh, yes, that huge hammer and sickle. Not very well painted out.”

  His smile flickered. “It was quite thoroughly obliterated after the Soviets left the city, but the paint has gradually worn away. That’s an ongoing debate in Council, actually—those who want to reflag the entire square, and those who want to leave it as is, as a memorial to our eventual triumph.” He paused, staring sightlessly into his cooling coffee. “Here’s the funny thing. After I’m chucked out as a murderer, I’ll miss those debates.”

  He said it lightly, as if it really was funny, and not heartbreaking.

  I blurted, “You did not murder her.”

  “Driving drunk is the same as picking up a weapon, if someone dies as a result. That means murder,” he said to the coffee, as snow thudded against the glass and the wind screamed.

  I wanted to argue, to defend him, but I could tell from his tone that he’d already had this argument before, over and over, inside his own head.

  “What will happen if they decide against you?”

  “Ridotski is determined that it will be exile, though I am willing to sit in prison if that’s for the best. But I don’t know what’s best. Except that everything go according to law. The problem is, which law? We are in the middle of so much change.”

  “You have prisons, right?”

  “Yes. That is, historically, common people convicted of crimes were put to work. We didn’t have an underclass to force into the work no one else wanted to do, so our convicts built the railroad. Certain capital crimes put you on the chain gangs to do tunnel blast work, and everyone knew it. But aristocrats were exempt from those laws. They were subject to the king.”

  “So they got away with murder?”

  “The king’s cronies might. You know how human nature is. Otherwise, you might find yourself assigned to border duty at one of the mountain castles for twenty years, or for life. Exile. Sometimes firing squad, if the crime was deemed to fall under the military code. That’s what some anonymous letter writer has been demanding for me, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “Anonymous letters sent to the Council and to the paper. But the editor won’t print unsigned letters, so whoever is trying to stir up trouble for me—so far—has been muzzled, at least as of the latest edition.”

  “Oh, Alec, that’s—”

  He looked into my face. “Kim, I killed her. If the country decides I should stand against the wall, then I will do it. The law should extend to everyone.” He stared down into his cup again, in bleak isolation, though we were scarcely two inches apart.

  I would not insult him with the fatuity of, It will turn out all right because I love you. Though that was the way I felt. So I said, “Do you remember when I asked you to kiss me, after I got drunk that night when we were running around the Dalmatian coast?”

  “I haven’t forgotten.” His voice lightened.

  “I kind of wish you had. Kissed me, I mean.” I made a horrible face, winning a hint of smile. “That was painfully embarrassing, but I will say this, at least you rejected me kindly.”

  The smile was gone. “Kim, you were the right person in the wrong circumstances, and drunk as I was, I knew that I should be thinking that you were the wrong person in the wrong circumstances. I wanted very badly to kiss you.”

  In answer, I did the thing I had longed to do ever since I left Dobrenica, believing that I was making the honorable choice for him and for his country.

  I set aside the coffee and lifted my palm to his face. “So, kiss me now.”

  My touch seemed to go through him like a shudder; his eyes closed, then he laid his hand over mine. I took the coffee from his other hand, set it beside mine, and closed both hands around his face. And then I kissed him.

  It was tentative, at least it was meant to be. But my inarticulate question, my offer of solace and comfort and tenderness ignited a response in him, desperate in its intensity. And so, there we were, lip-locked like a couple of teenagers on the living room couch as a shock wave of intense desire obliterated the past, and the future, and even the now.

  Rap rap. I didn’t hear it at first, then I didn’t want to hear it.

  Rap-rap-rap!

  We broke for air, and he uttered a breathless laugh, then clawed his hair out of his eyes. “Should we answer that?”

  I knew who it was, just because my life wasn’t complicated enough. “No,” I said, a second before the rapping started more insistently.

  Then Beka’s voice came through from beyond formal entry, muffled but audible, “Alec, if you are in there, you must this instant unlock the door!”

  TWENTY-TWO

  ALEC TURNED TO ME, dismay verging on laughter. It was so good to see that smile, though it was almost immediately quenched.

  “Do you want to be here?” he asked.

  “It’s either that or hide behind the couch, and I really don’t want to do that. For one thing, it’s too cold.”

  He opened the far door. As he crossed into the marble entry way, he twitched his clothes straight, and I took a swipe at my chignon, which had been knocked askew.

  There were two grand carved doors. He opened one and Beka stamped in, snow dusting her from her blue fuzzy hat to her neat boots. Her gaze shifted from him to me, her brow puckered in question, then cleared. “Alors, here you are, Kim! Bon. You were next.” And back to Alec, “Honoré is in the car. I’ve been all over the city looking for you. We’ve got to find a place to hide him.”

  “What happened?” Alec and I asked at the same time.

  Beka stopped short, took a breath, then said, “You know the Danilovs took Honoré straight back to Mecklundburg House after the funeral.”

  “Yes,” he said. Then asked, “Something happened at Mecklundburg House?”

  “Poison,” Beka said bluntly.

  Flash! In every single surface that could reflect, Grandfather Armandros appeared: windows, the polished black table top, the oval mirrors behind the wall sconces.

  I yelped.

  Alec and Beka started. “What is it?” Alec asked, leaping to his feet, hands up and ready. Beka pressed her hands to her heart.

  “Didn’t you see that?” I squeaked, flailing my arms in every direction.

  “No,” he said.

  “See what?” she said.

  “Grandfather Armandros—oh, never mind.” I rubbed my eyes, and peeked. No ghost. “Poison? Someone tried to poison Honoré?”

  Beka had recovered her customary poise, except for the strain around her eyes. “The only reason he isn’t dead is because he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. Shurisko got at his tray.” Her lips trembled as she added, “An innocent dog! The darling.”

  “Where’s
Honoré now?” Alec asked as he delved into his pocket and jangled keys.

  “In my car, right outside your Vigilzhi command station,” she said. “There’s a guard stationed around it.”

  “What did the von Mecklundburgs do?” Alec asked.

  “This is via my mother. I haven’t spoken with any of them. She said that the family arrived home to find the poor dog, and a note from Honoré saying that he was leaving, and not to look for him. They went wild. The temporary cook they’d hired for the holidays was sacked the very first thing, though he swore to the Komandant that the food was fine when he fixed the tray—and that he even ate some of it himself. That from Danilov, who left with the cook howling that he would heave up his lunch to prove it.”

  “Who took the food in?”

  “Danilov says that the cook claims he handed the tray off to Luc. Who insisted he took the tray straight to Honoré’s room.”

  “Who is Luc?” I asked.

  “Been with the family since before I was born.” Alec’s gaze was distracted. “I’d be very surprised if he’s turned poisoner.”

  “Shurisko is dead? That beautiful dog?”

  Beka gave a short nod, her lips tight. “Honoré got back in time to hold his head as the poor thing died. Then he wrote his note, picked up his coat and cane, and went straight out, down the back way through the garden. He came to my house. My mother brought him over to me at school. I left the faculty meeting and have been driving around with him in my car ever since. I tried the Danilovs, which is where I got the report I just told you. They were willing to take him—Phaedra said she knew she could get some of her Vigilzhi friends to guard him off-duty as well as on—but Honoré said no. That’s too much trouble for too many people, and you know how many doors that old house has.”

  “It’s true,” Alec said, adding to me, “the Danilovs’ house was the Soviets’ MDV HQ for a while, until they figured out how easy it was for our people to get in and out and read their communiqués at leisure. Beka, why don’t you take him to Anijka?”

  “He won’t. He’s afraid the poisoner would go to her next and maybe attack her family.”

  “I don’t get why Honoré is a target, unless someone knows about his aura thing,” I said.

  Beka crossed her arms. “I think we can assume that it is exactly that. But why? Who is to be exposed?”

  “Maybe the duchess?” I offered doubtfully. “No, I guess that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Especially as she and Tony and Robert were at the Council meeting, arguing with Baron Ridotski about who was going to be chosen as the investigators when this must have happened,” Beka said.

  “Unless that’s her alibi,” I said, but if she went to all the trouble to be away when someone tried to kill Honoré, why did she invite him to her home in the first place? The duchess was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

  Alec asked, “Did Honoré say anything about the Council meeting itself?”

  “He said that at least eighteen people had no auras.” Beka then turned to me. “Old Domnu Chandos was never as gifted as Honoré. He is able to perceive the intent to mislead but little else. Honoré sees auras reflecting all emotion. So eighteen people with no aura were either dead, and they were too lively for that, or they were masked by hidden charms.”

  “We don’t know that this poisoner is connected to the investigation of Ruli’s death. If anyone does suspect a connection,” Alec said drily, “suspicion will turn my way.”

  “I hate this,” I muttered.

  “Yes.” Beka’s voice was quiet.

  Alec frowned at the floor, then lifted his head. “Does Honoré suspect me?”

  “No,” Beka said. “He asked me to find you. And ask for your help.”

  Alec took a deep breath. It was clear that this small sign of trust heartened him. “I know where to take him.”

  “Then you do that, and don’t tell me.” Beka raised a hand, palm out—the same gesture Tony used. “Honoré might have been followed to my place. You know how bad I am at lying, and if this killer is someone I know, I want to be ignorant of Honoré’s whereabouts.”

  “Let’s leave no sign we were here,” Alec said to me. “Why make it easy for someone to follow?”

  “I’ll wash the cups, you check around,” I said.

  That’s what we did. He was back by the time I’d washed and stashed the coffee mugs. I also poured the rest of the coffee down the drain and rinsed out the pot, placing it where I’d seen it originally.

  Then the three of us left, Alec having doused the lights one by one. He picked up a flashlight from the closet off the main salon and led the way through a confusion of doors, sometimes opening onto plain whiteplastered walls, other times carpeted or parquetry hallways, the flash glinting on gilding and crystals, catching on the warm colors of ancestors in their silks and lace in the wall portraits. The last hall was one of the plain ones, leading to the Vigilzhi guard station, where we found bulky figures stationed around Beka’s car, two with bayonets fixed. Next to her car sat a Jeep, engine running.

  When we neared, a flicker in the whirling snow resolved into a leaping dog ghost. Shurisko bounded frantically around the car, passing in and out of its steel casing. His fur flew, glimmering with ethereal light. I pointed, but since no one was reacting, I dropped my hand.

  Commander Trasyemova came out of the station, bending into the wind. He spoke briefly to Alec as Beka opened the car door. A Vigilzhi and Alec helped Honoré out. He looked wretched. And though he could see auras, he obviously didn’t see his pet leaping around him, trying to catch his attention.

  As soon as Honoré was settled into the shotgun seat of battered Jeep, Beka turned to me. “Let’s go. We’ve work to do.”

  I watched Alec settle into the driver’s seat of the Jeep. Before the windows clouded he cast a glance through at me. We exchanged smiles—I knew what he was thinking, as I was thinking it, Interrupted again.

  He backed the Jeep, and I climbed into Beka’s car. She fired up the engine as I wrestled the seatbelt over my coat. “Work?” I asked.

  She crouched over the wheel much as Nat had, intent on the two feet of visibility, most of it taken up by wildly gyrating clumps of white. “Great-Aunt Sarolta passed on a report of your session with the prism.”

  “You mean my total and complete lack of any control whatsoever?”

  She shook her head. “Of course you did not master the use of the prism on the first try. Does a sculptor make a statue when she first takes chisel in hand?”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s just frustration. Besides the useless ghost thing, I find I have this other talent that doesn’t seem to do anything besides make me get motion sickness while sitting down.”

  “The work I have in mind is actually concerned with your ability to communicate with ghosts.”

  “Jury’s out on that, too.” I told her about Ruli, in detail. She listened in silence as she drove slowly in the whirling snow. I finished up, saying, “I’ve been trying to contact Ruli in every way I can imagine, to ask her what she meant, what she needs. No luck. Armandros, same thing. Did I mention I also see him? Ghosts don’t talk to me.”

  She gave a small sigh of disappointment as she navigated uphill. “Very well. Then the only thing I can think of is to try Tania Waleska’s skills. I am told she has had commerce with ghosts all her life. But you will have to extricate her without Madam Petrov making trouble for her.”

  “Tania? She says she has trouble talking to them now that she’s not a little kid. But I know she’d be willing to try, if it was important. Why?”

  “Because I believe the only way we’re going to have any success is if we go out to the site of the crash to talk to Ruli’s ghost.”

  “Whoa,” I said, trying to get my head around that. “Okay. I guess I can see it. And yes, Tania would definitely be better than I, as she does hear them, and so far, outside of Ruli’s single Help me, I’ve got zip on Ghost Audio.”

  “Bon,” s
he said, and sighed. “What a diabolical day.”

  She stopped the car and shut off the engine. Peering through the steam-smeared window, I discovered Nat’s building looming above the drifts of snow.

  Nat was alone. Her dinner—a meat-stuffed sandwich and a fruit tart—sat on the jumbled coffee table, half eaten. She’d been watching a DVD on her laptop. As we shed our coats, she shut it down with a swipe and set it aside, then threw a pile of magazines off her chair onto the floor. “Where did you two meet up?”

  “At the palace,” I said. “She came to Alec’s.”

  “Ooo-kay.”

  Beka was too intent on getting her gloves off to notice Nat’s pursed lips and rolled eyes.

  I mouthed, It’s okay. And out loud, “Somebody tried to poison Honoré de Vauban, and got his dog instead. I wish ghosts could bite,” I added.

  Beka flicked a fast look at me. “You saw the ghost of Shurisko?”

  “Running around Honoré, in and out of your car.”

  “Day-amm! I don’t know if that’s sad or spooky.” Nat grimaced, shaking her head.

  “Both,” I said. “It looked to me like he’s trying to guard Honoré.”

  “That’s a dog for you.”

  Beka sank down onto the sofa. From that I took my cue to sit in the chair, and there we were in our accustomed spots. Weird, how humans do that.

  Beka flexed her fingers, which had to be as cold as mine. “Natalie, I must beg you to bring tea, or even your so-terrible coffee, or I shall perish. It’s been an evil day, and a long one.”

  “So come on back, and give me a sitrep. I’ve always wanted to say that,” she added as she led the way back to her jury-rigged kettle system. “Situation report! Sitrep! Makes me feel part of the action.”

  Beka gave her a fast summary of events from her point of view, ending with, “And so I had to find Alec, and Kim as well, because I thought she could talk to Ruli’s ghost. When I found both together, I saved an hour of more driving in this storm. It is the first good thing of a terrible day.”

  Hidden from Beka’s line of sight by the complicated water heating structure over the bathtub, Nat snapped a look my way and wiggled her brows.