SNAP: New Talent (3 page)

By the early 20
^th
century, the Kandeskys were living across Europe, making millions every year from trade.  They watched the rise of the entertainment industry, realized that it was almost as lucrative as minting money, and moved into the United States, cornering a chunk of the early movie fan market.  When entertainment took off and spread, so did the Kandeskys until they now held the top spot in celebrity news and gossip across Europe and the Western Hemisphere. 

The Huszars were homebodies.  They stayed in Middle Europe, didn’t take acolytes, hunted for their food and generally made themselves a scourge of the country-side.  After 400 years, they’d eliminated the smaller vampire families, as well as the residents of several villages, and were being forced to hunt further afield.

Although they didn’t need money to feed themselves, they did need it to keep up their living areas.  There were repairs to the castles and outbuildings, money to bring in electricity and indoor plumbing, money for transportation.  The Huszars earned this by hunting, cultivating and harvesting truffles.  Teaming up with werewolves, they followed the feral pigs of the forests, eventually using them for hunting prey as well as truffles in the oak forests.  They used servants, who lived the life of feudal serfs, to gather, pack and sell the truffles throughout Europe, and when the serfs outlived their usefulness, they became a meal.

Felix Huszar ruled his family with an iron hand for more than 300 years, only making one mistake.  He took an acolyte, a young, beautiful man from a tiny village without a name in a country that became Bulgaria.  No one remembered or cared where Matthais came from, and they learned not to ask.

Within a few years of becoming a Huszar, Matthais had gathered a following among the younger and newer family members.  They were tired of living in the 15
^th
century and watched their neighbors, the Kandeskys, as they took on the trappings of the uber-wealthy of the 20
^th
century.

The Baron and his family traveled the world, and in style.  They had planes, limos, yachts, lovely women and power.  Politicians, movie stars, sports stars, just plain rich celebrities, courted them.  No one turned down an invitation to a party, especially one at the Baron’s castle.

During the Kandesky’s rise, Matthais watched. What good was eternal life if every day was just like the one before, and would be just the same the day after?

When Felix’ decaying body was found along a path in the Neutrality, and Matthais took the reins of the family, the feud that had simmered for centuries burst into flame.  Matthais accused Kandeskys of murdering Felix to gain control of the Neutrality.  Stefan and Felix had carved out the Neutrality on the border between their territories years before.  Patrolled by Huszar werewolves and Kandesky demons, the area buffered the violence and became the place where the families could come together in relative peace...at least they wouldn’t be killed while there.

With a new head of the Huszar family, the ancient pact seemed doomed.  Matthais sent teams of werewolves and shapeshifters into the Neutrality, setting traps for anyone who came through.  And when a Kandesky was caught, he was dragged in front of Matthais who was willing to ransom him back to the Kandeskys.

I knew this had been the state of the relationship between the families, but it changed when I came into the picture.

Baron Stefan Kandesky hired me to take over the print side of the SNAP empire, the weekly celebrity magazine with editions in English, German, French, Portuguese and Spanish.  My job was to bolster circulation while researching and developing new markets.  And those new markets were where?  In the former Eastern Bloc and Soviet middle Europe.  The area that the Huszars thought of as theirs.

So now the Kandeskys were poaching on Huszar territories, and doing it in a way that would make them even more money.  Matthais was livid.

And because I was the agent that would make all this happen for the Kandeskys, I was the bulls-eye for Matthais’ rage.

With that, I came down the stairs to have dinner with emissaries from the Huszars.   Why should I be upset?

Chapter Six

There were eight of us for dinner.  Penelope, the Baron’s partner, and I were the only women.  And I was the only regular.  While I ate trout from the river, a rack of lamb and profiteroles for dessert, they had a dark-red consommé, steak tartare without the egg and blood pudding.  I was getting used to mealtime and I knew the household staff, regulars all, were eating the same menu I ate, so I’d gotten over my guilt for making the cooks work so hard at fixing different food.

Alessandr was as I remembered him, polite with late 19
^th
century Viennese manners.  He took my hand to his lips and said quietly, “Mlle. Maxie, it is a pleasure, as always, to see you.  May I introduce my colleague, Markov.”

I wasn’t sure the rough edges would ever get rubbed off of My-colleague-Markov.  Because it was the Baron’s dining room, I extended my hand and found it crushed in what I could only call a paw.

Markov was shorter than I and built like a gym rat on steroids.  He was dark, with black eyes and black hair extending to the backs of his hands and fingers.  His neck was as wide as his head, his shoulders made his dark suit look painted on and his arms were so muscled they angled out from his body.

“I’m happy to meet you,” finally came out of my mouth as I tried not to snatch my hand back.

“I’ve heard much about you,” Markov rumbled from somewhere in his chest.  “I can see that Alessandr didn’t exaggerate your beauty.”

I began to wonder if the young Huszars had brought in a ringer, one of their werewolves, to case the castle and assess the Kandesky power, but Jean-Louis took my arm again and led me to a seat while chattering on to Markov in some language I didn’t recognize.  When we were seated, he turned to me. “Markov is from the former USSR, actually Ukraine.  It’s so difficult to keep all these silly political divisions straight.  This part of Central Europe has changed names and allegiances so much over the years that I’m surprised the languages are still being spoken.”

I looked at Jean-Louis.  His glimmer was increasing and his eyes held the message “don’t ask me any questions right now”.  Well, okay, I was too spooked to even figure out a question to ask.  He’d told me enough about Markov that I was warned.  Markov predated the Soviet era, but how far back he went I had no idea and his politics were unknown.

Dinner passed uneventfully.  Most of the conversation was in Hungarian and what I was now recognizing as Russian.  Jean-Louis leaned over a couple of times to translate a remark for me, but the context seemed to be the difference in the East bloc since the USSR collapsed.  Much of the Soviet-styled building that happened after WWII was being demolished and cities were beginning to have an overlay of modern glass skyscrapers abutting 18
^th
and 19
^th
century municipal offices.  Marble and stone, blackened by years of coal smoke and left to squalor in the Soviet era were being steam-cleaned and the result was a whiteness that hurt the eyes.

This was all very interesting, but didn’t have any bearing on why the Huszars were here and what they were going to meet about later.

The Baron finally stood.  “I think we’ll have our coffee in the screening room and tonight we have a special treat for Maxie.”  He raised his wine glass, with a trace of the Bull’s Blood they all drank, lying pinkish in the bottom.  I raised my eyebrows and Jean-Louis raised his glass to me.   “We’re watching last night’s U.S. show on tape delay.”

This was a change.  We usually watched one of the European versions, with only an hour or two difference.

“Thank you.  Why are you doing this?”  These vampires didn’t just go out of their way, or change their customs, on a whim.

“We thought Alessandr and Markov should see a U.S. version.  This is where we started and it’s still the version that’s seen by most people around the world.  And it’s the model for all the other versions.”  With that, Stefan held out his arm for Penelope, Jean-Louis rose and gave me his hand and we led Milos and Bela the other two Kandeskys, along with the two Huszars, into the screening room.

 Coffee and tea had already been set up on the side buffet.   We chose places and settled in to watch last night’s episode of “SNAP”.  The music came up and the anchor, a young, blond woman whom Jazz detested, welcomed viewers in a perky voice.  I slid my eyes to Alessandr and Markov.  They were fixated on the blond, but I wasn’t sure if it was her pale skin or tight dress that attracted them most.  They might be vampires, but they were also guys.

When it was over, there was a babble of Russian and Hungarian as they shifted their chairs to gather around a small conference table.  I raised my eyebrows at Jean-Louis and he turned to Stefan.

“I need to talk to Maxie for a minute, first.  Start without me and I’ll catch up,” he said in English, then added a sentence in Hungarian that caused Stefan to purse his lips.

Now what?  Did the Baron regard me as a pain-in-the-ass hanger-on?  I knew the Huszars were interested in me.  They had, in fact, tried to kidnap me a few times, which is how I ended up living at the castle with round-the-clock demons watching me. Was something new happening?  Had I shifted from the whiz-bang guru of the print product to “Oh, that’s Jean-Louis’ new fling?”

I stalked out of the screening room ahead of Jean-Louis and turned toward the library, half hoping he wouldn’t follow.  That would give me a lot of psychic chips to use in this game, but he was right there, reaching over to open the door for me.

I moved over to a couch in front of the long windows, which now only reflected the warm room against the deep black velvet of a moonless Hungarian night.  He took a chair beside me.  Hmmm.  In our little one-ups-man-ship game, did that signify?

“We need to clear the air, again.”  His voice sounded, what—tired, peeved, indifferent?  When I glanced over, the glimmer had faded, not a good sign.

“Something happened today that set you off.  What was it?”

“I took a walk down to the river this afternoon and when Vladmir and I came back through the armory, Sandor said that Vladmir had been assigned to me because of what I was going to do next.  That meant that Sandor, and probably Vladmir, whom I’d never met before, both knew what I was about to do, where I was about to go, before I did.  And that made me feel like chopped liver.”

“‘Chopped liver’?  What the hell does that have to do with anything.”  Jean-Louis was honestly stumped, enough so that he wasn’t furious.

“It’s just an expression.  It means, well, that something’s not good enough.  Instead of being a fancy pate de fois gras, you’re only chopped liver.”  Explaining it like that made me feel pretty petty and using an American colloquialism was something I tried not to do, because it always threw the vampires who spoke the classical and upper-class dialects of the languages.

Watching me stumble around trying to make sense of chopped liver, watching my face start to get pink, Jean-Louis lost some of his anger.

“We do have differences.  You’re right, I don’t always tell you everything, but that’s because I’m not used to caring about someone, or having someone in my world who cares about me.  My focus has been the family and the business, so my confidants have been Stefan, sometimes Milos and Bela from the village here, occasionally Pen and the SNAP executive team.”

That was a long statement, and one probably hard for him to make.   He was this stunning man, at ease anywhere in the world, speaking several languages, able to hold his own against the best art directors in the business.  And he’s apologizing to me.  Well, he didn’t say “I’m sorry,” but this was the closest I’d ever get to it and it popped my bubble of anger.

“I don’t like that I get so hurt by you.”  I got up and moved to the arm of his chair.  “I’m like you, I just haven’t had anybody to care about for so long, that I’ve woven a little world of my own and I’m the king, or queen...the most important person, anyway, and don’t have to answer to anybody.  I’m used to being in a world where people worry about my moods, not where I have worry about some one else’s.  Wow, when two egoists like us come together, there’s liable to be collateral damage!”

He reached up and stroked my face, following the line on my chin with one of his long, sensuous fingers.  I slid into his lap and nestled my head into his shoulder.

“If you keep trying to remember to tell me things, to take me into your confidence, to let me help you plan, I will try not to take everything as a personal slight.”

He nodded so I said, “Now, what plans do you have for me that the demons already know about?”

Chapter Seven

Jean-Louis moved so suddenly I was almost dumped on the floor.  “My God, woman, you just never give up! You know that we’ve been talking about opening new outlets in the east...Ukraine, Russia, why is this such a big surprise?”

Hah, I was right!  I
was
getting shipped to Moscow!

“When do I have to leave?”  The thought of going to a strange city, a cold place where I knew no one and didn’t speak—or for that matter, read—the language, with only Vladmir for companionship and safety made chills run down my spine.  Jean-Louis wouldn’t subject me to a long absence, would he?

“Leave?  Where are you going?”  I would swear his puzzled look was real.

“You’re sending me to Russia, to Moscow, aren’t you?”

This time I did end up on the floor as this beautiful vampire threw back his head and laughed so hard he convulsed.

“Where do you come up with these...these...ideas?  Who ever said you were going to Moscow?”

“Well, there’s Vladmir, there’s everybody suddenly speaking Russian. And what about  Markov at dinner?”  My indignation was tempered with my being on the floor in a Chanel suit with a skirt so tight I couldn’t bend a knee.