Wait. All of them?
How?
And why? Some kind of corporate plane crash?
But all Lucien could see in the fuzzy snapshot of his mind’s eye was a room…a very dark room. A basement, maybe.
And blood. Quite a lot of blood.
A car crash in an underground parking garage?
That was the only thing that made sense.
Poor bastards.
What was happening to him? How did he know how all these people were going to die?
And why did he know it?
“How do you do?” Lucien said politely to the soon-to-be-dead men. There was no use warning them, of course. What was there to warn them of? “I’m sorry to disturb your…evening out. But I was wondering if I might have a word with my brother alone.”
A look of annoyance passed over Dimitri’s face. Lucien saw it. He was certain he saw it.
But it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.
“Of course,” Dimitri said. “I’ll just be a moment, gentlemen.”
“Take your time,” one of the soon-to-be-dead men said jovially. “Next act’s not for ten more minutes. You should join us, Lucien. Girl apparently smokes out of her-”
“I’ve seen it,” Lucien said quickly. “In Turkey once. But thank you for the invitation.”
Dimitri rose and ducked through the curtain Lucien was holding open for him. “What is this?” he asked grouchily, following Lucien down the side of the balcony, toward a sign marked Exit. “I’m actually here on business, you know. I don’t have time to keep having these not-so-brotherly reunions of yours.”
A bald man with huge biceps, dressed in a black T-shirt and pants, who’d planted himself in front of the door marked Exit said, “Emergency exit only. Take the stairs.”
“That won’t be necessary, Marvin,” Lucien said gently.
“No,” Marvin said, looking confused. Then he stepped aside and pushed the door open for them. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what I was saying. Have a nice evening.”
“We will,” Lucien said.
They stepped out onto a fire escape over a back alley. The evening air was cool. It was much quieter outside than it had been inside the club, where pounding rock music had played. Though Lucien could hear the sound of distant thunder as a storm was brewing over New Jersey.
The bouncer closed the exit door behind them.
“Well?” Dimitri asked irritably, taking out a cigar and lighting it. “What is it? I thought we’d pretty much said all we had to say the last time we met.”
“No,” Lucien said. “Not everything. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Have you?” Dimitri looked suspicious. “What about me?”
“I was wondering what that little”-Lucien made a twirling motion in the air with his index finger-“was about before, actually.”
Dimitri looked skyward. “I should have known. You think too much, you know. You always did. With you, it was always about books. And the past. Never the future.”
“Have you ever considered that it’s only by studying the mistakes of the past,” Lucien said mildly, “that we can even have a future?”
Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Right. What you’re doing now is so noble, molding little human minds. It’s probably never occurred to you, has it, that our kind is beginning to say you’ve gotten soft…”
Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Really. Do you think I’ve gotten soft, Dimitri?”
“I didn’t say me,” he said. “But I was giving you an opportunity to show them how wrong they are.” He rubbed the back of his neck, as if remembering his hard landing at Lucien’s hands. “You should be thanking me, actually. I think I did an exemplary job of illustrating that you’re still at the top of your game.”
“Interesting,” Lucien said. “Since I was attacked earlier this week as well.”
Dimitri looked up, surprised. Lucien couldn’t tell if his surprise was genuine. Dimitri had always had a flair for the dramatic.
“Here?” he asked. “In the city?”
“Yes,” Lucien said. “And in front of a human.” He wasn’t going to say a word about Meena. Nothing more than what he’d just said. He knew better than to let on that he had a special interest in a woman-particularly a human woman-in front of his half brother. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“For God’s sake, Lucien,” Dimitri said. He flicked some ash off the side of the fire escape railing. “Of course not. What do you take me for?”
Lucien reached for the dragon symbol that hung around his half brother’s neck. “Someone who’s tried to kill me in the past so that he could take over the throne himself. I see you’re still wearing this,” he said, letting the iron image dangle between his fingers, the very closeness of his hand to Dimitri’s throat an unspoken threat. “So was your son, and that other boy you were sitting with in your club. Are you telling me that doesn’t mean anything?”
“Of course it means something.” Dimitri spat over the side of the fire escape, into the alleyway fifty feet below. “We’re related to Dracula, for the love of God! Why wouldn’t I use that, and the family coat of arms, to promote my image as a businessman? You know I’ve never understood your reluctance to do the same.”
Lucien’s expression twisted into one of disgust. “Perhaps because I want nothing to do with the Dracul,” he said. “Nor do I see anything admirable about being a direct descendant of someone who killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children in his lifetime, and who was, quite rightly, eventually put to death for it.”
Dimitri looked bored. “Well,” he said, “I suppose if you’re going to put it that way.”
“And you’re telling me that neither you nor your son had anything to do with the Dracul’s attempt on my life in front of St. George’s Cathedral?” Lucien demanded.
“Brother.” Dimitri shook his head, his expression crestfallen. “What did I ever do to you to make you distrust me so?”
“I believe it was when you tried to have me buried alive at Târgovi te,” Lucien remarked.
“Ancient history,” Dimitri said. “You always did hold on to grudges for far too long. Father thought so, too.”
“Strangely, I don’t put much stock into anything Father said,” Lucien remarked. “If he hadn’t been so loose with his lips, the truth about our existence would never have been leaked to that fool Stoker, and we wouldn’t have the Palatine after us and have had to change the family name.”
Dimitri’s brows lowered in an expression Lucien recognized. “There are ways around the Palatine,” Dimitri said. “They aren’t as almighty as they like to think.”
Lucien reached out and, taking hold of his half brother by the throat, lifted him into the air. Not just off his feet, but until he was holding him over the side of the fire escape, fifty feet from the pavement below. Dimitri, panicking, grabbed at Lucien’s sleeves, looking down desperately and gasping. He’d dropped the cigar, which tumbled to the ground and exploded with a shower of red sparks when it hit the cement.
“Father used to brag that the Palatine would never catch him either,” Lucien said. “And look what they did to him. Is that what you want to happen to you?”
“I-I didn’t mean it,” Dimitri gargled. He wasn’t in the most comfortable position, dangling by his neck so many feet above the ground. “Stop fooling around, Lucien. P-put me down.”
Lucien tightened his grip. “You may actually have something to worry about, Dimitri, besides the Palatine…because just this morning I woke up with the strangest feeling that all of this-the dead girls, the attack on my life-somehow points back to…you.”
Dimitri made a gagging noise. He appeared to be saying, No. No, it’s not me…
But Lucien only grinned.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m really quite sure of it, in fact. I can’t prove it…yet. But I will. And when I do, I will do worse than decapitate you, I can assure you…as well as anyone I discover who may have helped you. I’ve turned a blind eye to your instigating rebellion against me in the past because you’re my brother, Dimitri, and family is…well, family. But things have changed now. You don’t need to know how, just that I won’t do it anymore. Not when human lives are being lost and others are at stake. Do you understand me?”