Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) (36 page)

The Zubas' mouths opened, fangs slightly extended.

Wankers
, Moose thought, and then he grimaced. Ever since those transfusions, his bloody temples had throbbed painfully while the rest of his whole body had grown numb. Had he gotten a bad batch of O negative?

The tattooed Zuba pivoted on his heels and ogled a redhead in tight black pants. She hurried around a corner.

“Hey, stop acting lewd. You're on duty,” Moose snapped.

The trio put on reflective capes and followed the couple to the canal. Moose frowned when the people stepped into a gondola. A man in a striped shirt pushed a pole into the water and the boat surged forward, merging with a dozen other gondolas, all of them floating toward a bridge.

“Hurry, duckies, or we'll lose them,” Moose said. The Zubas ran behind him along the water. They crossed the bridge and cut down a tangled lane. The gondola skated into a narrow waterway lined with saffron and peach houses. The couple leaned together and kissed. The girl looked like the one in Wilkerson's picture. Yet something just wasn't on.

He and the Zubas jogged along the canal, tracking the gondola. It curved back toward Campo di Santa Margarita. The couple got off the boat and wandered to a gelato stand. Moose's head jerked up when he heard their voices. This wasn't right. The lad with the Clifford girl was supposedly a Briton. These people were Americans.

“That's the wrong couple,” Moose told the Zubas.

“No, you are wrong,” the tattooed Zuba said.

“You're barking insane. It's not them.” Moose pulled out his new iPhone and got the number for the San Gallo. When the hotel operator answered, he cleared his throat. “Hello, dearie,” he said in a perfect imitation of a woman's voice. “This is Mrs. Gaudet. My daughter is a guest at your hotel.”

He made up a cock-and-bull story about how the daughter shouldn't be disturbed, that Mrs. Gaudet was merely double-checking her precious girl's room number.

After he'd gotten the information, he caught up with the Zubas at the gelato stand. They were still watching the wrong freaking couple. The boy led the girl down a narrow cobbled lane, both of them licking their gelati. The girl's cone was the color of blood but smelled fruity. The tattooed Zuba swaggered after them, and the one with the nose ring followed. Moose grabbed the tattooed vampire's jacket. His hands hit a solid hardness.

The Zuba turned, his eyes flat and cold. Empty.

“You're driving your geese to the wrong pond,” Moose said. “Let's go.”

“No, you go,” said the nose-ringed Zuba. “We stay.”

“But you've tracked the wrong people,” Moose said. “The real ones are out there, riding in bloody gondolas and feeding pigeons. You're wasting time.”

“We will catch up with you later,” said the tattooed Zuba, showing his teeth. “After we feed.”

“Whatever,” Moose said. His temples pounded, and little fishhooks of pain were spreading into his forehead. He waited until the discomfort faded, then he lifted his iPhone and punched in the number for the San Gallo again. Harry Wilkerson would pay for serving nasty blood. And his daughter would pay with her life.

 

Caro paced in front of the shuttered windows, her shadow dashing over the yellow walls, flitting over blue damask draperies. She fretted over the upcoming bank visit. Then her thoughts turned to Jude. If only she hadn't made a fool of herself in the campo. Maybe it was hormones, but she needed to feel his warm breath on her cheek, his mouth on her mouth, his body inside her body. But that wasn't going to happen because he saw her as an invading, conquering presence.

She turned away from the window and leaped onto the nearest queen-sized bed. The mattress took her body with a slap, setting off unbearably pleasant sensations. She breathed in little sips of air and beat her fists against the pillow until the pulsing in her limbs slowed. After a long while, she slid off the bed, walked to the ornate French desk, and forced herself to look in the mirror.

White face. Mussed hair. Eyes ringed with black mascara. She was a dead ringer for a raccoon. Her pupils were still large and light sensitive, but the flu-like symptoms had vanished. Heaving a sigh, she pushed back her dark brown mane. It had grown longer overnight, falling just past her shoulders, courtesy of Georgi. He was dead, yet his molecules were still alive, burrowing into her DNA.

Her mouth felt dry, as if she'd dipped her tongue in alum, and a glossy sheen covered her palms. The internal changes were beyond her control, but she refused to let a vampire influence her hairstyle from the grave. By damn, she'd cut it off. She started toward her bag, then remembered that Jude had the scissors. She stopped abruptly, but her hair kept moving, snaking around her arms. She needed herbal shampoo and a long, soapy shower. But she didn't trust her body chemistry. What if the dye faded? Actually, that would be a blessing. The straightening solution was another matter. If her militant curls returned, she'd resemble her photograph on Sky News. But if she went to the bank without tidying up, the teller might not reveal information about Uncle Nigel's lockbox. Which was worse—a smelly bandit with straight locks or a clean-smelling girl with crooked hair?

When she was halfway to the bathroom, the phone rang. She sprinted back to the desk, hoping it was Jude.
I'm removing the word “can't” from my lexicon,
he'd say.
We can, and will, be together.
Right before she picked up the receiver, she remembered to answer in French.
“Oui?”

She heard a faint mewing, followed by a click, then the line hummed. She jolted, and the receiver fell from her hand. Exactly one week ago, when she'd learned that Uncle Nigel had died, someone had called her flat and meowed.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don't get paranoid. Murderers don't impersonate kittens.
The caller was a Venetian cat lady who'd dialed the wrong room. Caro wanted to dive onto the bed and yank up the covers, but she forced herself to walk to the bathroom.

She'd just dried her hair when she heard three sharp raps on the door, followed by two softer ones. “It's me,” Jude called.

“Just a moment!” She fluffed her hair. The color and texture were intact, and it fell in cold slices against her neck, soothing the wounds.

“Coming,” she called and put on an outfit that matched her mood—black jeans and a blacker sweater—then grabbed her bag and hurried out the door.

Jude leaped out of the way, his wet hair swinging forward. The dim lighting in the hall cast shadows over his bruised face. “I fetched our passports . . . ”

His voice trailed off. “You look ghastly. Has the nausea returned?”

“You have such a gift for sweet-talk.”

The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “So I've been told. What's wrong, Clifford?”

“Someone called my room and meowed.” She paused, and a miasma of snark washed through her. “I assumed it was you,” she added.

“You're joking, aren't you?” One edge of his mouth kicked up into a smile. “Oh, I see. This is payback for my lecture on catnip.”

She tugged the edge of her sweater. Did he think everything was about him? “It was a real call. By a fake kitten.
Thanks
for your concern.”

They walked in silence to Father Aeneas's room. The layout and décor were identical to Caro's. Yellow walls, two queen-sized beds, and ornate French furniture. Afternoon sunlight pricked through blue damask curtains, slashing over the floor. Demos ushered them into the room, running a distracted hand through his white hair. The monk sat in front of a desk, sorting through medicine bottles. When he saw Caro, he smiled and rose to his feet.

“Jude told me you were ill.” He grabbed her hands.

“Just a little seasick. I'm fine now.”

“Excellent. Please, sit.” He waved at a gilt chair.

She perched on the edge, and Jude positioned himself behind her, resting his fingers near her shoulders. The monk's dark eyes swept over her, and then he folded his liver-spotted hands and bowed his head. “Before we discuss your true reasons for coming to Venice, let us pray.”

True reasons?
She didn't have a clear goal, just a handful of clues. Her thoughts dispersed when the monk began to whisper in Greek. She felt dizzy as words swirled in the air, each one curled and shimmering. Caro felt a tug on her left shoulder, then Jude's hand moved to the back of her neck and gently squeezed. She glanced back. He shook his head, his eyes guarded.

She looked away. Why was he so distrustful? Because vampires had severed his tendons or because suspicion was part of his core personality? Trauma molded a person far quicker than kindness; that much she knew. Her parents had been slaughtered, but she'd survived. Doom and doubt were part of her being, but the pessimism had been balanced by Uncle Nigel's unconditional love.

Now, as the Greek prayer eddied around her, she understood why her uncle had withheld the truth. For whatever reason—probably because she'd moved to London, where he couldn't protect her—he'd changed his mind, and recently, according to the dates on his letters. He'd approached Caro's history the way he would prepare for an archaeological dig. First, he'd unearthed the scientific article, and then he'd burrowed deeper, tracking Jude from Yorkshire to Zürich. Her uncle had set up that meeting in Oxford, hoping to assemble the odd pieces of her life like potsherds. Then, because he loved routines and schedules, he'd left for his annual dig at Perperikon. During his final moments, he'd left clues and the Fates had brought them to her.

Caro sat up straight. Why hadn't Uncle Nigel left any hints about Jude? Had he forgotten? Despite her uncle's condition, his quick mind would have allowed him to jot down a scrambled form of
Jude Barrett—biochemist.
Why hadn't he? Because even at the end of his life, her uncle had been cautious and practical. No need to bring Jude into the fray and endanger him. The monk was a man of God, a former physician, and he knew intimate details about Caro's parents. Uncle Nigel had been deliberately obscure with the anagrams to protect her and Father Aeneas—but was the omission of Jude's name a clue?

Father Aeneas's prayer beads clicked softly as he sketched a cross in the air. His narrow face dissolved into wrinkles as he smiled. “Caroline, what do you hope to find in the safe-deposit box? The third icon? Or ten pages from
Historia Immortalis
?”

She was pretty sure she'd find the vellum, so why was she lying to this good man? Because her uncle's death had created a void. Jude's rejection had created another one. Nature abhors vacuums. She squeezed her hands until her fingertips turned pink.

The monk opened his bag and dragged out a small cloth bundle. His gnarled fingers drew back the fabric. The icon was a bit smaller than hers, and curved at the top.

“Caroline, let me see your panel.”

She fished it out of her bag and set it on the bed. The monk pushed his icon beside hers, aligning the colors and images. The night sky filled the top portion of both panels, with mountains jutting up like wolf teeth. Father Aeneas's icon showed a stone sarcophagus. Inside was a man, his eyes wide open, and he seemed to be rising. Below him, a fire raged out of control, flames jutting out of an arched window, with a tiny robed figure racing away from the inferno, carrying a sheaf of papers and a large egg.

Caro tried to look away from the flames, but she felt herself pulled toward them. She could hear crackling wood and smell the scorched flesh. She felt a cool hand on her shoulder and looked up into Father Aeneas's eyes.

“My child, are you ill?” he asked.

“I don't know.” She pointed to his icon. “This is the fire that killed my parents. And this figure is a child. She's me.”

“Impossible,” Father Aeneas said. “The triptych was painted in the eighth century.”

“But look at my icon.” She pointed to the red-robed woman. “She's holding a book and an egg. And her hair is dark like mine.”

“It's not you.” Jude touched her neck. “A week ago, you were blond.”

Father Aeneas nodded. “This triptych depicts the Albigensian Crusade. Many people burned, and
Historia Immortalis
was at the center of it.”

“What does the egg mean?” Jude asked.

“It's symbolic of birth and rebirth.” Father Aeneas drew his finger along the line where the icons were joined. “Do you see the beehive and peacock feather? More symbols of immortality. Sir Nigel and I put these panels together a long time ago. We spent days examining the art, trying to decipher the metaphors. The night sky is larger on my panel. And look at the stars—Perseus and the Pleiades. This is significant. Of what, I do not know. We desperately need the third icon.”

“Maybe it is in the vault?” Demos spread his hands.

“What time does the bank close?” Jude asked.

“If Caroline leaves now, she should make it before siesta,” Demos said.

She grabbed her bag and started for the door. “Wait,” Jude called. “Where are you going?”

She turned. “The bank.”

“What are you planning to use for identification?”

She reeled backward. “Damn.”

“What is the problem?” Father Aeneas folded his hands.

“The bank will ask for identification,” Jude said.

Father Aeneas stepped away from the bed. “But Caroline has the key.”

“She'll need more than that,” Jude said.

Father Aeneas frowned. “The bank isn't interested in Sir Nigel's lockbox.”

“They might be interested in
her.
” Jude stared into Caro's empty chair. “She can't ask them to look up Sir Nigel's box. She doesn't have the number, by the way. And they're going to ask for it, along with her relationship to Sir Nigel.”