They say that creating any portal, whether it’s a hundred yards long or ten thousand miles long, requires the same amount of Power. I personally haven’t created any portals yet; I don’t have the skills for that, but I believe Nadya.
The difficulty with creating long-distance portals is making sure that they’re accurate. No one wants to emerge into the subsoil deep below the surface of the road, or fall out of the air ten or twenty yards above the surface of the ground.
By the way, falling out of the air a hundred yards up is far less dangerous. Then you have time to put the brakes on with a spell. Magicians who don’t have much experience quite often set up their portals to end high in the air.
The portal created by Zabulon was so precisely aligned to the surface that I didn’t even feel change of level when I stepped into it. The only change was that my ears were blocked by the sudden difference in air pressure and my skin was instantly covered in sweat in response to the change in temperature, humidity, and all the other various factors that exist in nature.
After all, to be transported instantaneously from Moscow to New York isn’t the most normal experience for the human body.
“I’ve always appreciated Zabulon’s style,” said Ekaterina. “He’s set us down at the entrance to the Empire State Building. Right on Fifth Avenue!”
I nodded, gazing around. Zabulon’s portal really was very fine. Not only was it perfectly aligned with the pavement, it was equipped with spells of invisibility and deterrence.
None of the people on the street saw us, but they all scrupulously walked around the small patch of ground where the portal had arisen. And although midnight was already approaching, there were lots and lots of people. New York, Manhattan, Fifth Avenue. No matter what you might think about the United States in general and this city in particular, it genuinely never sleeps.
There were people walking along, standing and staring at the building, talking on cell phones, smoking, speaking every possible language—my own ears, tormented by the Petrov, picked up English, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese speech. The air was cool, of course, but nothing to compare with our Russian winter. Around freezing, maybe . . .
“I haven’t been here for a long time,” Olga said pensively. “I remember when they’d just built it, the building was half empty, no one could afford to rent offices in it . . . They used to call it the Empty State Building then. Hey, Katerina, which way do we go?”
The vampiress looked around. She was exhilarated, agitated, and pink. Pumped full.
“Into the main entrance. It’s very beautiful in there, by the way.”
“The building’s beautiful too,” I agreed. “Somehow I thought the New York skyscrapers were uglier than this.”
Olga laughed quietly.
“So this is your first time in New York? Don’t worry, you’re quite right, most of the skyscrapers are ugly. The Empire State is a rare exception, left over from an age when people put beauty above profit.”
“And it is always bloodred like this?” I asked, looking up at the skyscraper receding into the sky.
The Empire State Building was lit up in dark maroon, illuminated richly and brightly—the bloody sheen even ran across the sidewalks, overlaying the bright colors of the advertisements.
“No, the lighting changes,” said Olga. “According to events. Are your people responsible for this, Katerina?”
“Of course,” the vampiress said contentedly. “When we gather for a coven, they light up the Empire State in the color of blood. The lodge used to meet in Oxford, but we moved here in the thirties. Where the power and the money are, where the night is alive, that’s where we are.”
“I’m not surprised,” I growled.
The portal had already melted away and the effect of the spells was beginning to disperse. Most of the passersby walked around us, but a few people had almost crashed into me, and one barged gently into Olga, then apologized in embarrassment as he moved on.
“Don’t you want to know how my fling went?” Ekaterina suddenly asked, looking at me intently. “What do you think, did I drink them dry? Or just amuse myself a bit and let them go?”
“It’s all the same to me,” I said.
“I drank one,” the vampiress went on.
I sighed, reached out my hand, and set it on Ekaterina’s shoulder. She peered at me delightedly and even leaned forward slightly.
Maybe she wanted to fight? Could she really be serious?
“Katerina,” I said with feeling. “I couldn’t care less how much of what you sucked out of whom. Did you drink the boy dry? Or the muscleman? Or the Caucasian? That’s too bad, but it’s your right, you were given the licenses. Now get on with your part of the bargain.”
Ekaterina looked at me sullenly. Red glints twinkled on her glasses.
What would an Other need glasses for?
Especially a vampire?
Simply for show.
“I thought you had a serious psychological complex about us,” said the Mistress of Vampires.
“I did. It passed,” I replied curtly. “If you carry on jabbering and waffling, I’ll catch a couple of your foster children and reduce them to dust. You know me, I’ll find some reason. And if I can’t, I’ll invent one.”
For a few moments we pitted gaze against gaze. I even got the impression that she was prepared to go for a duel of will—and that would be bad, very bad, because I would have to break her, and the other Masters would sense it . . .
But Ekaterina looked away.
“I won’t provoke you anymore,” she said. “Follow me. Don’t talk. Try to let them take you for ordinary people.”
Olga and I had concealed our auras earlier, and only Others like us, Higher Ones, could see through our disguise.
Naturally, there would be quite a lot of those among the Masters. But they would also have to check us deliberately in order to discover our true nature.
“Who are we supposed to be here?” Olga asked as we moved toward the closest entrance of the Empire State Building.
“You’re my lover,” Ekaterina said. “And Anton is food.”
“I thought it was the other way around,” Olga said coolly.
“Anton has a fresh bite on his neck,” Ekaterina explained. “Any Master will sense it. That’s all right for a lover too, but you don’t have any bites, and that’s strange for food. I could . . .”
“Oh no,” said Olga. “So I’m a lover, that’s fine . . .”
I think Ekaterina even managed a gently mocking smile before Olga took her by the elbow, swung her around abruptly toward herself, and whispered in her face.
“Only bear in mind, you infant, that I was setting your kind on the stake before your great-grandmother had even been born. If you get abusive, your human lover will suddenly become your worst nightmare. Worse than Anton in a temper. Do you understand?”
Ekaterina nodded hastily.
“I know how vampires treat their human sexual partners,” Olga explained with a glance at me. “Worse than their food. So, to avoid any unnecessary problems or bad feelings . . .”
“I understand,” said Ekaterina.
Everyone goes out of their way to offend a vampire . . .
The vampire lodge had an abundance of human security guards. We walked through the foyer (luxurious) and took the elevator up to a floor somewhere in the eighties, then we were led through the corridors. Several times we walked up or down flights of stairs.
And all this time we were being passed from hand to hand by men and women in loose-fitting clothing, under which there was enough space for handguns and even machine guns. I didn’t spot any magic on the people; they were evidently either mercenaries or were working for the promise of eternal life. Believe me, that’s a very powerful stimulus—after all, only vampires and shape-shifters can pass on their abilities to anyone who wants them. As far as I was aware, intelligent vampires didn’t break their promises and occasionally, for special services rendered, one of their human servan
ts was accorded the dubious honor of becoming a living corpse. Their comrades had to know that their master wasn’t lying. So that they would fight to the end for this great happiness.
Eventually, after yet another flight of stairs and another corridor, we came out into a small lobby with broad windows offering a view of Manhattan on one side and tall, double wooden doors on the other. The two black guards with machine guns standing by one of the doors didn’t even think it necessary to conceal their weapons.
“Wait here, I have to arrange things,” Ekaterina whispered, and walked quickly toward the door with the guards. They let her through without any questions, but they kept their eyes glued on us.
“Hey, bro!” I called cheerfully to one of the guards. “How you doin’?”
No reaction.
Slightly offended, I walked over to the other door, which was standing ajar, and glanced inside cautiously.
It was a spacious hall with numerous sofas, armchairs, and low tables set with bottles, plates, and warming trays heating food. People were wandering around the hall, talking, lounging on the sofas, and eating and drinking from the tables.
And there were quite a number of them. About fifty.
They were all different ages. I spotted a few handsome old men and several teenage boys and girls. The old men were watching CNN on a TV fixed to the wall; the teenagers were playing with game consoles of some kind.
But the general mass of them were twenty to twenty-five years old.
And all of them were beautiful or handsome, each in his or her own way. A tall, elegant black youth, a young girl in a white dress with her fair hair hanging loose, a statuesque woman with incredibly classical, regular facial features.
“What’s in there?” Olga asked when I went back to her.
“The dining hall.”
Olga looked at me for a few moments, then nodded.
“I see.”
We didn’t discuss anything else. We knew perfectly well that no vampire needed to feed every day. And certainly not on a live human being—in most cases packaged blood was enough for them.
Most vampires basically regard feeding as an intimate process and don’t make a public display of it. At the very most, they make an exception for their clan.
But today there was a big gathering here. The global vampire lodge, represented by the most important Masters (currently there were forty-nine of those) simply had to arrange everything in what it regarded as appropriate style.
And that included the food. Most likely all the people gathered in the next hall were here voluntarily. Most likely they, like the security guards, had been promised that they would be turned into vampires—the beautiful, brilliant vampires eulogized by the deceitful books and the shameless movie industry.
And almost certainly no one would keep the promise that had been made to them. Licenses had been issued for them. They were food. The vampires could feed on them and let them go, or they could drink them dry.
“I wonder how Gesar’s getting on.” Olga sighed. “What do you think? Will he manage to sweet-talk the Grandmothers?”
“He could sweet-talk grandmothers,” I said. “But those are witches.”
Ekaterina came back to the lobby, but not alone. She was with a middle-aged blond woman. Or more precisely, with a vampiress whose age, naturally, I didn’t know.
“It’s not normal,” the woman said after glancing at us.
“Greta, Vincello’s sitting there in the hall with his own—”
“He was granted that right almost two centuries ago, and you know why,” the woman snapped. “Katya, what you’re asking is unreasonable.”
“Everything has its price,” replied the Mistress of the Vampires of Moscow. “What’s yours? You’re the marshal of this gathering, you can do anything.”
The woman hesitated and glanced again at Olga and me. I suddenly thought that all the effort of masking our auras could come to nothing if Greta knew me by sight.
And she could. The vampires had heard about me.
“Have you got the belt with you?” the marshal suddenly asked, lowering her voice.
“Yes,” Ekaterina said in an icy tone.
“That’s my price.”
Ekaterina glanced at us. Then she shook her head.
“No. You’re out of your mind. That’s completely out of the question.”
“For ten years,” said Greta.
“No.”
“For a year.”
What were they talking about? Yet again I regretted that somehow I managed to keep running into vampires all the time, but I knew so little about them. They were very secretive, of course, but a certain amount of information did exist . . .
“For a month,” said Ekaterina.
“For three,” Greta replied.
“Done.”
The female vampires smiled at each other and embraced.
“Come through in two or three minutes,” Greta said amiably. “Turn right straightaway and sit in the top row, so you won’t stand out. And make sure your people sit quietly.”
Greta walked away with that smooth vampire glide. The black security guards at the door stared straight ahead with stony faces. But what were they thinking as they guarded a gathering of vampires and saw the people destined for slaughter in the next hall? Did they feel glad that they wouldn’t be touched? Were they dreaming of becoming immortal bloodsuckers?
Or were they not thinking of anything at all, which is most often the way of things.
“What kind of belt is that?” I asked in a low voice, moving closer to Ekaterina.
“None of your business,” she replied, not looking at me.
“But really?”
“An artifact. An old magical object. A piece of scuffed pigskin with bronze clasps,” the Mistress of Vampires replied reluctantly.
“And what does it give you?”
Ekaterina glanced at me and laughed.
“A sense of taste. Once a day it gives you a sense of taste and you can eat ordinary food. Eat it and taste it, like a human. It’s only an illusion and you still need blood anyway. But you can eat it, and you won’t have the taste of wet cotton wool in your mouth, but of strawberries and whipped cream, jamón with a slice of melon, pasta with Parmesan, buckwheat porridge with milk.”
“Bloody steak,” Olga added.
Ekaterina answered her perfectly seriously.
“Believe me, bloody steak is one thing we don’t miss. But we could easily rip someone’s throat out for a plate of semolina pudding with cherry jam.”
“You should tell that to your . . . servants,” I said, nodding toward the black enforcers. “So they wouldn’t be so keen for promotion.”
“They’re warned, but they don’t believe it,” Ekaterina said dryly. “That’s all now, let’s go.”
We followed her past the security guards.
The hall where the vampires were gathering looked like a university lecture theater—a semicircular amphitheater, rising up from a podium at the bottom. It could probably have accommodated a hundred or more people quite comfortably.
Or Others, of course.
We walked in through the upper entrance, beside the top row. We turned right and followed Ekaterina quickly in order to take our seats. The hall was in semidarkness; only the stage was brightly illuminated. There was a lectern with no one standing at it, but sitting at a small table beside the lectern were Greta, a handsome, youthful-looking individual, and a skinny, frail-looking old man. All vampires, naturally.
“Your attention for a moment, please,” Greta announced.
Her voice was quiet, but the audience was already focused on business, and in any case vampires know how to speak so that you hear them, even if you don’t want to.
“For worthy reasons,” Greta continued, “Mistress Ekaterina of Moscow is accompanied by her attendants.”
The audience looked around at us. But not all of them and only briefly. I was moving along beside the long bench with my head lowered, hoping
that no one would get the idea of looking at the pitiful human being through the Twilight. Who was interested in me anyway? After all, we don’t peek into the sandwich bag of the person sitting next to us on the commuter train . . .
They didn’t look closely at me. And there were other humans in the auditorium apart from us. We reached the middle of the bench and sat down. I glanced around discreetly.
Delightful girls nestling against imposing-looking men. Handsome young men who couldn’t take their eyes off their dead mistresses. Teenagers of both sexes—I had heard that in these cases it wasn’t even a matter of perversion, but the strange urge felt by ancient vampires to create the illusion of a family for themselves. Vampires couldn’t have children and, as far as I knew, for them sex had certain peculiarities. But some of them created surrogate families, adopting and raising children—basically leading some kind of simulacrum of a human life.
I remembered the mysterious “belt” that Ekaterina had loaned out for three months in order to get us into the session of the lodge. What a bad time they had of it, after all. How cold and joyless their life was!
Even though they were lucky, and didn’t have to have semolina pudding with cherry jam. The vampires still showed no sign of getting started. They were clearly waiting for someone. I took out my earphones, leaned back on the bench, switched on the MP3 player, and it came up with “Picnic”:
Nostradamus had his fill of pain and grief
And brought his visions forth into the light.
Had he but known that within easy reach
A world is hid that has no future time.
The world is but a hall of phantoms,
Learn to disappear.
Where, breathing in the gelid, peaceful air,
Time’s serpent by the chains of sleep is bound
And cruel letters cannot be assembled into words
By the deliberate, unhasting hand.
The world is but a hall of phantoms,
Learn to disappear . . .
The door opened again and a slim little girl of about twelve walked in, wearing a checkered shirt that was one size larger than necessary, tattered jeans one size smaller than they should be, and with bare feet.