31
The Ingraham Institute
The baroness had brought him a mirror. A compact, folding one of the kind ladies carried in their purses. “I know you think you’re so slick,” she’d said, laughing fondly, “but I see you trying to fix your hair. I just thought.” She’d grown serious. “You might like to have this. And this.” A simple plastic comb that nearly brought tears to his eyes.
“I don’t need these,” he’d said, gruff to cover the emotional clog in his throat. “I can make myself look however I want when I go dream-walking.”
“Sure. But that’s not the point, is it?”
“No…no, I suppose it’s not.”
He pulled the mirror now from its hiding place under his sleeve, in the crook of his elbow, where he tucked it when one of his guards brought his meals so they wouldn’t see it and take it from him. A man with a small token was somehow more pathetic than one with nothing, and he didn’t trust their indifference; in his experience, no one ever missed the opportunity to inflict little tortures when it was convenient.
He opened it and tilted it to catch the meager light of his cell. His reflection – his true one, and not the glamour he conjured when he went wandering – was a horror. Sunken cheeks, sunken eyes, chapped lips. His hair hung in greasy snarls; it had bypassed dirty, and then filthy, and become the lion’s mane of a wild man. Humans would have said he looked like someone raised by wolves, and the irony of that thought sent him into a fit of laughter, his voice echoing off the bare walls around him, sounding more than a little insane.
“My,” he murmured, quieting, dashing the tears from his eyes with the back of one trembling hand. “Radu the Handsome. Look at you now.” He snapped the mirror closed and slipped it back up his sleeve. Later, he would open it back up and prop it as best he could on his cot; get out his comb and, perhaps with the aid of a little of the olive oil-based salad dressing stolen from his next lunch tray, he’d begin the laborious task of working the knots free. Now, though, he wanted to be somewhere else. With someone else. Not with any of the immortals and their allies whom he visited, no. They were diversions, possibly assets, but they weren’t…they weren’t people who saw him. They saw Valerian the Brother-Killer. Radu the Handsome. They saw someone who wasn’t to be trusted.
Sometimes he was summoned.
Sometimes he slipped onto the astral plane and found other immortals shining across the vast distances like beacons, like drawing like.
But sometimes, like that one time, and all the times that had come after it, when he was able to return to that place, he thought his mother’s gods must have been smiling on him after all to allow him such a gift. Something precious and secret that was his and his alone.
He wanted to go there now. To her.
Valerian moved into the corner of his cell, pressed his back against the stone walls, let his head fall back and closed his eyes. Calm, he had to be calm for this. He’d just fed, and though it was weak, the pig’s blood gave him enough strength to send himself down into that dark, thoughtless place where his magic lived. He had to go down, first, then the magic would draw him up, pull his consciousness from his body in a dazzling helix, send him to the dark, uninhabited plane where time and distance meant nothing.
He saw something, a bright orange flicker, but he tucked his head and kept going, going, all the way to the place that he’d earmarked with a little white dot.
His projection coalesced in the wood-paneled office of a barn in Colorado. Sunlight fell through curtained windows, glinting off the glass of all the framed photos and award shadow boxes that were hung on every inch of wall space. Ribbons in all the colors of the rainbow fluttered in the breeze of a window AC unit. An orange cat sat on a tack trunk and licked itself.
And at the desk, the person he’d come to see wore pale green breeches, and a white shirt, her black schooling boots with the spurs strapped to the ankles. Her dark-gold hair, pulled back in an efficient bun, looked a little stuck to her head: helmet hair, she called it. She sat with her elbows braced on her knees, her head in her hands, her breath catching and hiccupping. Crying.
Fear flashed through him, so fierce and sudden he felt sick, even though it wasn’t possible for his projection to do anything with that sensation. He reached out, and then stopped, because he couldn’t touch her. Could offer no physical comfort of any kind. So he let his arm fall and said, with false cheer, “Well, it looks like I stopped in at a bad moment.”
She jerked, head snapping back, hands slapping down on her legs. Her eyes were red, but dry, as was her face. She’d been fighting the tears, then, working hard to hold them in. Her expression went from shocked to smooth to embarrassed to glad, all in a single heartbeat.
She sniffed and wiped hastily at her dry cheeks. “Val. Hi.”
“Hello, Mia.” He smiled, and she smiled back, albeit shakily. “Don’t look so happy to see me,” he teased, but inwardly was screaming, Who hurt you? Who made you cry? Tell me and I’ll put their heads on pikes outside your city walls.
A tiny voice in the back of his head pointed out how very martial that was: so much like your brother after all.
“Oh, I am happy. I just.” She shook her head, then winced, and brought her hands up to cradle her skull. “I, um – this is embarrassing. I had…had a bit of a fall. One of my headaches. And Donna sent me in to get some Tylenol and rest, but…” She blinked hard a few times. “I’m sorry. I’m just so frustrated.”
“You fell?” He closed the distance between them in two long strides, hands coming up to hover fruitlessly above her shoulders. “Where? How badly? Do you need a doctor?”
Her smile opened across her face like a wound, red-edged and raw. “No, it’s…no.” She turned her head away from him. “Don’t look at me like that.”
His heart pounded in his throat, quick enough to choke him. He swallowed and said, “Like what?”
“Like you care.” Then, quieter, “Like you’re real.”
But I am real. He swallowed again. “I do care.”
She breathed a shaky laugh. “I guess you wouldn’t be a very good imaginary friend if you didn’t, huh?”
“Mia–” he started.
“It’s growing.” She turned back to him, and he shut his mouth so quickly that his teeth clicked together. Her smile tugged at one corner, muscle in her cheek fluttering. Her lovely blue eyes filled with tears. “The tumor. It’s growing again. That’s why I’ve been seeing you more – why the hallucinations are getting worse.”
His hands opened and closed in the air above her shoulders, utterly useless.
“The doctors can’t – or they won’t…” She wiped at her eyes again, and her fingertips came away wet this time. Her voice darkened. “My father called, and he says there’s this…this experimental treatment…”
Everything inside of Val went cold. His breathing caught; back in his cell, no doubt he was hyperventilating with his eyes closed, his stomach in knots. “But you won’t…I mean, you haven’t spoken to him…”
“I’m considering.” She looked and sounded completely defeated, and it crushed him to see that she’d given up. Even as a small, twisted little voice in the back of his mind whispered, But there’s a chance. He could save her.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. “Maybe that’s really selfish.”
“It’s not.”
She spun the chair slowly back around, so she faced the desk, and the myriad plaques that hung above it. Her eyes went to one, dark wood with a gold center, her name etched in the center, marking her the regional champion last year.
“You have to say that,” she murmured. “You’re a figment of my imagination.”
Sunlight filled the engraved letters, set them aflame: MIA TALBOT.
He’d wanted to touch her since the moment he found himself in the middle of her charmingly cozy living room several months back. She’d been curled in an overstuffed chair with a blanket and a book – about vampires, of all things, some silly bit of fiction rot in which two pining would-be lovers were kept apart by sunlight – and he’d been struck by the urge to hook a finger beneath her chin, tilt her head back, and press his face into her clean, smooth throat; see if she smelled the way she looked: petal-soft and rich with strong blood. But as time wore on, and he at first found himself with her by accident…and later by choice and no small amount of effort…he’d wanted to touch her in other ways. Had imagined it alone in his pitiful cell, with nothing but his own dirty hand for company.
He’d never wanted to touch her as badly as he did right now; wanted to set his hands on her shoulders, knead the tension from them. Press a kiss to the top of her head and tell her that all would be well.
It wouldn’t, though. She was dying, and there was nothing the doctors could do.
At least nothing the normal doctors could do.
He shifted so he stood beside her chair, able to glimpse her face and the grave sadness etched there. “Tell me about your father’s cure.”
She blinked and her eyes slid over. “I’ve told you before.”
“Tell me again.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “It’s experimental. A drug trial that’s only available to wounded combat veterans, which I am clearly not.” She gestured to her elegant riding attire, sullied by dirt down one side where she’d fallen.
Val tried not to let his panic overtake him again. He gave a sharp nod. “Yes, but if your father’s in charge, then he can do as he sees fit.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Okay, I may not work in experimental, government funded medicine, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works at all. And besides.” She bit her lip. “Dad is…” She shook her head. “It’s difficult.”
“He sounds like a horrid man from what you’ve told me,” he agreed, and having met the man, he agreed even more than he could tell her. “But if he could save your life…” He let it hang. They’d had this discussion before. Short of shaking her – which he couldn’t do – and begging her – which wouldn’t work, he didn’t think – he had no way of forcing the issue again.
“Yeah,” she murmured, distant now.
How easy it would be if he was truly here now. He would sit down on the desk, and open his legs, take her by the hand and pull her to stand between. Hands on her narrow waist, lips at her brow, her nose, her crushed-rose lips. “Trust me,” he’d murmur against her ear, and she would shudder, and press in closer to him. Lips at her throat, faint salt smell of her skin. She would smell like horses, like hay, like wild exhilaration. And he would sink his fangs, and drink deep, drawing the taint of disease from her body. When she was too weak to stand, he would support her in his arms, and bring his opened wrist to her mouth. “Drink,” he would urge, and she would. And she would sleep, and he would hold her. And when she woke, she would be well. And immortal. His princess.
“…Val?” She’d said his name several times by now.
“What, sorry, yes?”
She smiled at him, full of affection. “It’s bad enough my students ignore me, but even my imaginary friend does, too.”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped before he could catch himself, and she recoiled.
He took a deep breath and softened his tone. “I’m not that,” he said, more gently. “I’m not imaginary.”
Sadness touched her smile. “But you’re not real.”
He swallowed. Clenched his jaw. Tilted his chin up to an angle that had once been imperious, had once sent men scrambling to obey, but probably now just looked pathetic. “I am,” he said with great dignity. “I am real, Mia, and you know it.”
She held out her hand. She had calluses at the base of each finger from holding reins. “Prove it.” It was more plea than challenge, something vulnerable in her eyes that tugged helplessly at his shriveled black heartstrings.
He reached for her, and as he’d known it would, his hand passed straight through hers.
He was only a projection.
“You have no idea how badly,” he started.
And she said, “I do.”
He believed her.
Val turned away, cleared his throat. Let his eyes wander across the framed photos of elegant warmbloods and their elegant riders decked out in show finery. God, he missed riding. What would it be like to go riding with Mia? Better than blood, better than freedom. He ached for it.
When he trusted his voice, he turned back. She had opened her day planner and was penciling in notes, head propped on her hand. Tired. From this angle, he could see the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“So tell me how Brando is doing,” he said of her gelding, too-cheerful, just wanting to break the weight of coming grief.
She allowed a small grin. “Well, before I took a nosedive off of him, we were working on pirouettes.”
“Ah. Tricky.”
“Yeah, but he’s catching on so quick.” Her gaze lit up, tired though it was, and it warmed parts of him thought long dead to listen to her passion for animals, for the sport she loved. It had been battle in his days, those fanciful movements on horseback, but now they were only for pleasure. A small miracle in a world of unending disasters.
“I have video if you want to see,” she said, and he felt himself smile.
“Yes, I want to see.”
He spent probably an hour peering over her shoulder at the laptop screen, watching the dance of horse and rider. Not as good as watching it live, but wonderful all the same. And then, suddenly, in the back of his mind, he registered the sound of the heavy bank vault door opening at the end of the hall of cells, and was sucked back to his body through self-preservation alone.
Darkness. A swirl of lights. Dizzy. Sick. And he opened his eyes on his dank little cell to the sound of footsteps coming toward him across the old stone floors.
Familiar footsteps.
Not the light skip of the baroness, or the somber grace of her baron. Not one of the tromping guards, or the nervous medical technicians.
No, these were the measured steps of a man – of a prince – confident in his ability to terrorize and liberate in equal measure.
Val pressed his back into the corner, forced his hands to lay still over his knees, and watched Vlad Tepes step into view.
The problem with history, Val had always believed, was that, prior to photography, its images were preserved by artists who were inevitably biased in some way. There were records of his brother relating him as short, as stocky, as cruel-faced, as deformed. As ugly, with filed teeth. All the portraits had managed to touch on some truth. He did possess cruel features. And he did have fangs, as did all vampires.
But the man known as the Son of the Dragon was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and strong as ten men. Stronger. An athlete, and a warrior, and an expert swordsman. Beautiful in the way of a predator, impassive as a cliff face. He had their father’s dark eyes; Val had been bestowed the clear blue of their Nordic mother.
It was the first time Vlad had been down into the subbasement – oh, call it what it was, the dungeon – since Fulk le Strange awakened him.
It was the brothers’ first meeting in five centuries.
“Radu,” Vlad said.
“I see someone finally shaved that horrible mustache off of you,” Val said.
Vlad shifted closer, boot soles scraping over stone, his expression unchanging. He was dressed in simple, modern clothes. Black tac pants and a thin, black long-sleeved shirt that showed off the muscle he’d put back on since waking. He’d tied his hair back, like he was ready for a fight. Someone had given him a dagger – his dagger; Val recognized the rubies worked into the hilt. The belt was new, though; leather couldn’t survive five-hundred years without regular cleaning and oiling.
“I didn’t believe them,” Vlad said in correct, though accented English. He’d always had a head for languages. “When they told me that you were here.”
Val sent him a barbed-wire smile. “You took your time coming to see for yourself.”
“I’ve been busy.” It was said with the old dismissive authority; the voice of a brother without time for childish games.
“Yes, I’d imagine so. So many things to learn about: English, America. iPhones and zippers and frozen pizza. It’s a world of wonders, isn’t it?”
Vlad growled, a single low note of warning. “There is a war coming. I’m familiarizing myself with modern warfare.”
“A war,” Val scoffed, but inwardly, his stomach curdled. “When is there ever not a war for you? You can’t live without war, brother. It’s in your blood.”
Vlad tipped his head back a fraction, looking down his prominent nose at Val. “You with all your wandering, and you’d deny the darkness that’s coming? How typical.”
“What darkness?” His heart pounded hard in his chest; no doubt Vlad could hear it.
Vlad’s smirk was too vicious to be mocking. “They haven’t told you, then.”
“Who hasn’t told me what?” There was only a little frustration in his voice.
“You are a prisoner. Prisoners aren’t consulted in these matters.”
“What are you talking about?” he sneered. But something twisted inside him. Vlad was many, many things: but he’d never been a liar. Even his great historical deceits had been fraught with overt clues for those who’d bothered to look for them.
Vlad studied him a long moment, gaze betraying nothing. And then he squatted down on his haunches so he and Val were face-to-face through the bars. “Do you remember,” he said, “when we were just boys. Before.” No need to explain before what. There was only ever one before they spoke of: before the sultan took them. Before everything changed. “When Uncle Romulus came to visit.”
“Yes,” Val said, breathless despite his best efforts. His lungs tightened of their own accord, and he felt sweat bead at his temples, beneath his shoulders where they were pressed to the cool stone. He could recall the nursery of his earliest memories: the roaring fire, the Asian-patterned carpets, the intricate toys carved from wood, and cast in gold, set with precious jewels. Scent of the rose oil Mother dabbed behind her ears, the warm voices of their elders conversing.
Uncle had come to see them, alone, had crouched down in front of them much the way Vlad was crouched now, backlit by the fire, his Roman features cast in flickering orange light.
“One day,” he’d said, smiling at them in a way that was very different from their father, “you will be great generals in my army. When we take the world.”
It was years later that Val would learn taking the world meant breaking it first.
When Vlad got down on one knee before the Holy Roman Emperor and vowed to send their uncle to the hell he didn’t believe existed. Back to the awful dark place from whence Romulus’s army had crawled.
“Vlad,” Val said, and took a steadying breath. “They woke you up to get to your blood.”
A smile cut across Vlad’s face, the fast, humorless slice of a knife. “To heal their soldiers. To make them stronger. Yes. And what do you think they need so many soldiers for?”
Val took another breath, and another.
“They have you. They have your blood. Why do you think they needed a crusader?”
Val closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He’d known; he’d felt the shifting, the way, even back in the nineteen-forties, immortals were growing restless. He’d thought that Philippe’s failure, and Rasputin’s death would slow things…and it had, no doubt. But he couldn’t stop what was coming. Not from the inside of a cell.
“They found something in the desert,” Vlad said, clothes rustling as he stood. “It’s awake.”
Val cracked his eyes open a fraction and watched his brother step back and brace his broad shoulders against the wall. Fold his arms.
“You’ve been dream-walking,” Vlad said like an accusation.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No. It’s in your nature to be slippery and deceitful.”
“My, your grasp of the English language is extraordinary. Did they teach you any of the curse words yet? Fuck is my favorite. And Americans use it so frequently and creatively–”
“If you’re trying to interfere with what they’re doing here, you’re going to regret it.”
“I regret most things, brother. Why should this be any different?”
Vlad wasn’t amused. “This is not a joke, Radu–”
“That’s not my name!” Val shouted before he could catch himself. The words just came boiling out like steam.
Vlad’s brows lifted. The mildest surprise, that was really more censure than anything. “It’s the name Father gave you.”
Val breathed raggedly through his mouth. He brought his hands up to push his hair from his face, and his chains rattled and clinked together. “I had more than one parent,” he snapped. “We both did.” And Mother had called him Valerian, because she thought it sounded like a pretty name for a Romanian prince; for old Roman royalty: the son of a king’s brother. Second in line to a throne that no longer existed.
Vlad sighed. “Do what you will. Valerian.” It was a concession, and not a small one by Vlad’s standards. “But don’t interfere.” He tipped his chin down, eyes wide and dark, driving the point home.
I will hurt you, his steady gaze stead. Do not test me.
Val sketched the most elaborate bow he could manage given his present position. “Of course, Vlad Dracula. Your majesty.”
Vlad snorted and pushed off the wall. “Do not test me, brother,” he said aloud. You know how that always goes.”
“Yes.” Val rotated his wrists, cuffs clinking softly. “I know.”
Vlad had nearly reached the first door when Val called after him. “Are you glad to be awake?” He said it nastily, bitterly. Mocking. But he was curious.
Vlad paused a moment, hand resting on the hilt of his dagger. “No,” he said, without artifice. “I am not.”
And he left.
The door shut with a heavy thump, and Val was alone again.
“My brother, ladies and gentleman,” he said to the empty space around him. “What a fucker.”