“Nothing,” he told them. “Except that my mistress Changed me on a whim. My looks appealed to her, and her consort was . . . inattentive. She thought I would be a comfort when he was away attempting to chisel off bits of other vampires’ territories. But when he returned and found me in her bed, it was my bits that were almost chiseled off.”
Mircea winced, and Jerome moved a protective hand to the front of his hosen.
“In the end, she convinced him not to stake me, but only on the condition that I go away—immediately. She gave me some money, and safe passage here with some functionaries she was sending to buy jewels for her. And . . . that was it. I found myself on my own after less than a year, in a strange city where I didn’t know the language and didn’t have any friends. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Sounds familiar,” Mircea muttered.
“As I said. I don’t know where I’d have ended up, once the last of my gold ran out, but Martina found me. In a tavern, waiting for some of the humans to consume enough that I could get drunk off their blood when I took it. She told me that, if I worked for her, I wouldn’t want to get drunk so badly. That I’d have a future again, and a home and hope. She was right.”
“And the others?” Jerome asked.
“They each have their own story, and it’s theirs to tell. But they’re not that different.”
“You mean that Martina made none of her family?” Mircea asked. He hadn’t been a vampire very long, but that sounded . . . unusual, even to him.
“I’m saying what I said before—that she does things differently,” Paulo told him. “She says that the idea that everyone needs a master is ridiculous, that it’s perfectly possible to live and thrive without one. Easier, in fact—you make your own rules. If I wanted, I could leave her tomorrow—”
“And do what?” Jerome asked.
“Whatever I chose.”
“Yes, until a stronger vampire came along and decided he wanted you. Or wanted you dead. That’s why we live in families—for protection.”
“I am protected! Martina—”
“Who you were just talking about leaving,” Jerome reminded him.
“I was not talking about leaving! I merely said that I could—”
“And I pointed out that you don’t dare. So how’s that different than being in a family?”
“It’s not—we are a family! We just don’t have a blood bond—”
“And don’t you think that’s weird? That she never bound you?”
“She doesn’t need to!” Paulo said, looking exasperated. “I stay for the same reason we all do, because we want to. We know that this is the best chance we have for a future.”
“But if she Changed you, wouldn’t that be the same thing?” Jerome asked. “Not everybody is held against their will, you know. I wasn’t. Nobody in my old family was—”
“Yes, and they proved so loyal to you, didn’t they?”
“I explained about that!”
“And I heard more than you thought. You can tell yourself whatever you like, but the fact is, they. Didn’t. Want. You. Martina does.” He glanced at Mircea and then away again. “She isn’t perfect, I know that. But she’s better than most. If you give her a chance—”
“I wasn’t aware that I had a choice,” Mircea said mildly.
Paulo flushed. “She’s . . . been a little tense lately. We all have. But when the current spectacle is over—”
“Speaking of spectacles,” Jerome said, breaking in. And sounding strange.
Mircea turned to look at the other vampire, who was staring at the crowd on the opposite side of the canal. And then at the guard on the nearby roof, who had just jumped to his feet. And then at the bridge, which had started shaking as if something, some massive thing, was crossing under its covered walkway, with heavy, clomping footsteps that echoed across the quiet night.
It wasn’t quiet much longer.
A new noise suddenly tore across the old city. One loud enough and strange enough to have Mircea flinching and Paulo making a very undignified bleat. Which no one heard over what sounded like a trumpet blast straight out of hell.
And might well be one, Mircea thought, staring in shock at what erupted from the mouth of the bridge a moment later, surrounded by the fire and smoke of a dozen torches. It was a monstrous creature, towering over the surrounding crowd, terrifying even in the glimpses revealed by the flickering light. Like something out of a nightmare: huge and misshapen and bellowing in anger.
And then stampeding—straight at them.
Chapter Eight
“Auugghhh!” Paulo dropped the pretense of elegance and knocked into Mircea, before running straight into the building behind them.
Mircea grabbed him, which only seemed to make his panic worse. But then Jerome snared his other, wildly flapping arm, and together they started to pull him away, toward the safety of the nearest alley. Only to stop when they realized that it was already full.
Of members of the Watch.
They had a few locals in there, too, as if they been in the process of moving them to safer areas. But now they, the locals, and some of the urchin children who always seemed to be about, regardless of the hour, had all frozen. To stare past Mircea in shock.
He spun around to find that the great creature had stopped in the street, just outside the portico. He couldn’t see it very well, since an expanse of weathered gray hide blocked the entire space between two columns and extended up beyond the roofline. But he could see its breath, great bellows that misted on the cold night air in front of it, like a mythical dragon spewing smoke.
Mircea stared at the nearest one, as speechless as everyone else.
Everyone except for Jerome.
“Elefante,” Jerome said, with every appearance of delight.
“What the devil is that?” Paulo squawked. And then jerked Jerome back when he started forward, as if to touch it. “Are you mad?”
“No, I—it won’t hurt you. Well, probably not. I saw one in a menagerie once, when I was a boy.”
Mircea and Paulo just looked at him.
“You know,” he prompted. “Like Hannibal had?”
Mircea vaguely recalled some lessons from childhood, which he had always taken to be myths. Legends. The kind of stories invented to keep bored schoolchildren focused on learning dull history.
But apparently not.
He looked at the great creature again. And then he slowly edged to the side of the portico, ignoring Paulo’s frantic whisperings. And looked up.
And up.
And up.
At something with legs like tree trunks and ears like sails and a huge barrel of a body. Gigantic tusks, bigger than those of a great boar, big enough to savage a man with one swipe, gleamed in the torch light. Small eyes set in heavy folds of leathery skin had an alarming amount of intelligence in them, more than Mircea liked, frankly.
Especially when they suddenly fixed on him.
And then an elongated nose, bigger than a strong man’s arm swept down before he could move—
And began to delicately snuffle around his face.
Mircea froze, unsure what to do with no weapons and with children so close—too close. In the end, he just stood there, while that strange proboscis mushed him in the face and messed about in his hair and sniffed at his clothes. As if finding him as odd as he did it.
And then it was gone, the great body wading slowly into the sea of vampires, who moved along with it, so quickly and so much in unison that it looked like the whole street was moving.
And then it was. First the street urchins broke away from the Watch, to run after the fascinating creature, followed quickly by the regular people of Venice. There had been no announcement, and relatively little noise, all things considered. But word had traveled nonetheless, in that strange, uncanny way that it did in cities.