A man’s groan, soft, of either ecstasy or agony, drifted out from farther in the fog.
Lara smiled faintly. “Some of my younger sisters are here. No sense of patience. Shall we take some champagne for a walk in the garden? I thought we might talk.”
Molly, her cheeks faintly pink, nodded firmly. “Excellent.”
“Freydis,” Lara said.
The Valkyrie vanished at once and came back with flutes of champagne on a silver tray, offering one to each of us.
With Freydis proceeding us, Lara led us out of the alcove, towardone of many doors that opened onto the gardens in the rear of the manor. We were about to duck out of the ballroom when the master of ceremonies’ voice suddenly came clear into a quiet space between musical numbers.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice somewhat strangled. “Drakul.”
Chapter
Seventeen
“Uh-oh,” I said.
Lara’s face went from pale to absolutely white.
Molly eyed me and Lara and she looked confused. She straightened and brushed a hand irritably at her face, and the glamour vanished, revealing her own features. “What am I not getting here?”
“He wasinvited?” I demanded of Lara.
“He’s always invited,” Lara said. “It would be an insult not to. But he never shows up.”
“Hello?” Molly said.
“Drakul,” I said to her.
She blinked. “Wait.Dracula?”
“No,” I said. “Dracula is like his spoiled drama-queen kid,” I said. “This is the original. During the battle, he took everything River ShouldersandListens-to-Wind could throw at him, everything the crew from the Red Court war could do, then he and his minions killed Chandler, Wild Bill, and Yoshimo and walked away smiling. He’s some kind of elder being.”
“Jesus,” Molly breathed. “Why is he here?”
“Hell if I know,” I said, which was more than half true. Drakul had told me that he was starborn and knew I was, too. He seemed to think we had some kind of weird camaraderie as a result, and the fact that I still knew almost nothing about what being starborn meant was beginning to drive me a little nuts.
But there was some kind of connection between us, based on that. He wanted something from me. I just had no idea what it might be.
Drakul paused at the top of the stairway. The shadows around him all seemed…darker, somehow, flowing around him like an honor guard. He was a tall man, six and a half feet at least, wearing close-fit black pants and a vest, with a billowing black shirt beneath. He was corpse pale, and shoulder-length black hair was swept back from an epic widow’s peak.
Drakul stopped at the top of the stairs. Eyes like black holes raked over the ballroom, unimpressed with the hedonism—and locked on me.
My stomach did a little panicked flip on me. My hand tightened on my staff.
Molly was just staring at him. “Is this…a fight?”
“No,” Lara said firmly. She swallowed. “No. He’s here as a guest. He’s one of the reasons the old laws of hospitality exist. He won’t violate that. He’s here to talk.”
“Very true,” said a smooth, mellow, accented voice from behind us, and we all whirled to find Drakul simplythere. One second, he’d been a good thirty yards off. The next he’d been behind us. No flash, no pop of displaced air, no surge of shadows, no telltale vibration of magical energy, nothing. It was like the concept of space simply didn’t apply to him.
All three of us twitch-jumped except for Molly and Lara.
He smiled slowly and showed us pointed canines. “Little Lara Raith. You’ve come a long way, and very quickly. I warned your father about you, you know. In…eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, I believe. He never was a good listener.”
“Lord Drakul,” Lara said, inclining her head slightly. “I confess, this is a delightful surprise.”
