“How so?”
“Theriac works best as a preventative—you’re supposed to take some everyday. Or at the least, shortly after you’re poisoned. But my master was on a trip, away from most of the family. And by the time he admitted he was in trouble . . . well, he came to me too late, is all. I did everything I could, but strong as he was, it just took him right out.”
“I’m sorry,” Mircea said, because Jerome looked genuinely upset.
“It’s fine,” the younger vampire turned away slightly. “I don’t know why I’m so—that is, I barely knew him. And he left me like this,” he gestured around, Mircea assumed at some abstract concept of vampireness. “But it isn’t like I had much to leave behind, and you know how it is with masters . . .”
“No. I don’t.” At Jerome’s look, Mircea elaborated—briefly. “I was cursed.”
“You were—oh,” his eyes went round. “You’re like the mistress then.”
“Martina?”
Jerome nodded. “We were talking about masters the other day, and Auria said something weird. But I guess that’s what she meant, huh?”
“What she meant?”
“Yes. She said Martina made herself.”
Chapter Seven
“Oh, you have got to be—no!” Paulo said furiously, looking like he’d like to stomp his elegant foot against the stones. But instead, he had to use it to jump under a nearby portico, as what looked like every vampire in Venice came stampeding their way.
Mircea and Jerome followed, barely managing to save their cart of expensive stuff from being crushed under the fanged flood.
“What’s happening?” Jerome asked breathlessly, as they flattened themselves against the wall.
Mircea was wondering the same thing. They’d just finished their shopping and met back up with Paulo, under a long portico near the Rialto Bridge. Only to find that, instead of thinning with the lateness of the hour, the crowd had substantially increased. And that was before a wall of people had come rushing at them like the tide coming in.
No, not people, Mircea corrected, feeling slightly over awed. Vampires. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, more than he’d ever seen in one place at one time.
That would have been eerie enough, all on its own. But the crowd was also totally silent, the only sounds coming from the creak-creak of the great wooden bridge as they passed over it, and the quiet tread of hundreds of soft-soled shoes. And the startled cries of the humans still about at this hour, who clearly had no idea what was happening.
Neither did the Watch, who seemed a little nonplussed by it themselves. As if this wasn’t quite what they’d been expecting. Mircea saw one on a nearby rooftop staring intently at another in the street, as if some sort of silent communication was going on. But then he shrugged and crouched back down by his chimney, as if admitting defeat.
“Some stupid senate thing, no doubt,” Paulo said irritably. “You take your life in your hands trying to go anywhere these days.”
Torchlight from the tapers held by some members of the crowd flickered against the columns of the portico, making shadows run on the bricks behind them. But in between the bursts of light, Mircea could see that the crowd extended up the street and across the massive bridge that unified the two halves of Venice. And then disappeared behind some buildings on the other side with no sign of slimming.
“We might be here a while,” he noted.
Paulo apparently decided the same, because he made another sound of disgust and knelt by the side of their overstuffed cart. “What did you get?” he asked, trying to rearrange their purchase so that he could fit his in as well.
“Most of the list,” Mircea told him, still staring at the almost silent throng.
“We had to settle for pine nut biscuits instead of cake,” Jerome said. “But there was a good variety of candies—”
“What kind?”
He knelt by the cart, sorting through a dozen large paper spills. “Sugar-coated almonds. Candied oranges, limes, and tamarinds. Comfits of ginger, cinnamon, and coriander. Dried fruit jellies. Marzipan. Nougat.”
“Good quality?”
“We went to three different shops to make sure. Try some.”
“For what?” Paulo asked. “I can’t taste them.”
“You can’t—” Jerome blinked.
“You’re not a master?” Mircea asked.
Paulo looked up, intermittent torchlight haloing his blond head. “Of course not. Where did you get that idea?”
“I thought so, too,” Jerome put in.
“Why? I never said—”
“But you hold a position of authority in Martina’s household,” Mircea pointed out.
“I’m good at what I do,” Paulo looked slightly offended.
“Yes, but . . .” Mircea paused, deciding how to phrase things. “Isn’t it more usual for a person’s position to match his power level?”
As far as he’d been able to tell, everything in vampire society was organized around how powerful you were—or were not, in his case. He’d often thought that was what was wrong with it. Power took the place of morals, of law—of God, for that matter. Everything revolved around whether you could do something, instead of whether you should. And no one seemed to have a problem with that.
Well, no one with the power to change things, at any rate.
“Normally,” Paulo admitted. “But Martina doesn’t do things that way.”
“Who is strongest, then?” Jerome asked. “It isn’t Auria?” He looked vaguely appalled at the idea. And then intrigued. Mircea was glad he didn’t know what was going on in that blond head.
And then it didn’t matter anyway, because Paulo laughed. “She’d like to think so!”
“Then who is it?” Mircea asked, curious.
Paulo continued rearranging packages. “I’m . . . not sure.”
“You’re not sure?” Mircea frowned.
“Richa has been with her the longest—”
“The cook?” Jerome asked, in disbelief.
“I said she’d been here the longest, not that she’s the strongest,” Paulo said.
“How long have you been with her?” Mircea asked.
“A little over ten years.”
“Ten—” Mircea stopped, trying to process that. Ten years in human terms might be considered a long time, but in vampire . . . it was practically an eye blink. But he didn’t ask, because the set of Paulo’s shoulders said that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Jerome, on the other hand, had no such reservations.
“What did you do before?”
Paulo didn’t answer for long enough that Mircea began to think he wouldn’t. But then he wedged the last package into place and stood up. “If you must know, I wasn’t all that different from you.”
“From who?” Jerome looked around, as if he thought another vampire had snuck up on them. “Than him?” he asked, after a minute, looking at Mircea.
“Than either one of you!” Paulo snapped.
“You mean Martina bought you, too?”
“No! She . . . found me.”
Jerome scrunched up his face, obviously confused. Possibly because the phrasing made it sound like she’d picked Paulo up off the side of the street, like a stray cat. “Where?”
“Here!” Paulo looked irritated. “Where do you think? Where do vampires go who aren’t wanted?”
“You weren’t wanted, either?” Jerome looked as if he couldn’t quite grasp that. He looked the taller vamp up and down. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Jerome,” Mircea said warningly, but Paulo didn’t explode. Instead, he rolled the huge waxed round of Parmesan cheese he’d purchased over by the wall and sat on it, to more comfortably watch the impromptu parade.