Mother of Chaos Read online

  She picked a plain, dark coat with matching pants and a white shirt to travel in. She had learned long ago that plain clothes were best for travel—they didn’t get as dirty and didn’t go out of fashion so readily. Especially among the poorer classes, where Ruxandra often fed. She packed a second of everything into a bag she slung over her shoulder. Then she packed her plainest dress—for when she could act like a woman again—a pair of shoes to match, a warm shawl, and all the underclothes she needed.

  She hiked the bag over her shoulder, took one last look at her apartment, and then closed the door behind her.

  Maybe Moscow will be pretty.

  She went to the café, took a table, had a coffee, and waited. Kade didn’t appear for the better part of two hours. When he arrived, though, he looked far better than the night before.

  He’d found new clothes—a knee-length black coat with silver buttons, dark-blue trousers, and knee-high boots. He wore a new white shirt, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail, much like Ruxandra’s. He also carried a bag over his shoulder. The angles of his face caught the candlelight and caused more than one head to turn in his direction.

  “I must have done well,” Kade said as he sat down beside her. “You’re staring.”

  “In surprise,” Ruxandra said, ignoring the heat that she felt low in her belly. Just because it’s been a while is no reason to act like a cat in heat.

  She preferred women, though it had taken her ten years after Elizabeth before she’d been willing to trust anyone enough to have sex with them. Elizabeth had used Ruxandra to become a vampire. Then she’d assaulted her and laughed at her pain.

  It had taken even longer before she’d gone with a man.

  A hundred years before Elizabeth, she’d met Neculai. He was strong and handsome, and she was newly turned and alone. He became her lover in the same moment that she became his murderer. And far worse than that. She’d drunk him, but couldn’t let his soul go. He turned first into an undead slave; then, when she fed him her own blood, into a mindless vampire. She’d had to hack him to pieces and leave him in the sun to die. It had frightened her so much that she’d gone deep into the woods, living like a Beast for a hundred years.

  It was a beautiful, dark-skinned, dark-haired courtesan in Venice who had convinced Ruxandra to try the joys of the flesh again. Donatella, she of the laughing mouth and inventive endearments. Ruxandra had made certain to be sated with blood before she went to the woman, and it had been very pleasant indeed.

  Another woman—a Roman matron with blonde hair and a taste for both men and women, preferably both at once—had reintroduced Ruxandra to men. The results had been worth waiting for, a feast of charm and desire. The big bedroom lit with dozens of candles, carafes of wine, and the men so young their flesh was like apple blossoms. Of course, they thought she was young, too . . .

  She hadn’t had a lover in a year, since she’d come to Pisa. She’d played both man and woman but hadn’t wanted anyone to get too close, lest they find out what she was doing. She’d settle in as a woman for a while soon, find a girlfriend, but it was hard to let go of the freedom of the streets.

  She preferred girls, but the way Kade looked now . . .

  No. Never. Not as long as my fingers still work.

  “Better?” Kade asked, one eyebrow rising.

  “It’s an improvement.” Ruxandra kept her voice neutral. “At least you don’t stand out like a pig in church.”

  “Thank you,” Kade said drily. “Now, shall we be on our way? We have a long way to go.”

  “How far?”

  “Nineteen hundred miles, more or less.”

  Ruxandra blinked. Kade smiled.

  “How are we getting there?” Ruxandra asked. “Running?”

  “I thought of hiring a carriage and driver.”

  “We can cover two hundred miles in a night, running, assuming there’s a road. I doubt you’ll find a carriage driver willing to try the same.”

  Kade’s eyes widened. “Two hundred miles running. Truly?”

  “You’ve never tried?” Ruxandra shook her head. “What have you been doing?”

  “Wealthy people don’t need to run.” Kade signaled for a cup of coffee. “A carriage takes only a month.”

  “We’re in a hurry.”

  The waiter brought two cups of coffee and set them down in front of them. Kade picked his up and blew on it.

  “We can run to Moscow in twelve days,” Ruxandra said, “if we stop every third day to eat. Which we’ll need to do if we run like that. It makes you hungry fast.”

  “How on earth did you find this out?”

  “I heard that Louis XIV ordered a remount of Lully’s Atys two weeks before the performance opened. So I ran there. Made it in nine days.”

  Kade sipped at his coffee again. “How was it?”

  “Mediocre. Louis loved it. And the dresses were splendid.”

  “I see.”

  “So let us run.” She looked at his boots. “I suggest taking those off.”

  Kade’s face fell. “Do you know how long it took me to find someone the right size?”

  “Take them with you,” Ruxandra said. “Just don’t wear them while we run. The heels will wear out and trip you up after a few dozen miles.”

  “As opposed to rocks in my feet?”

  “You don’t feel those after the first mile.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Ruxandra stood up. “Now, shall we?”

  “Finish your coffee first,” Kade said, taking another sip. “There’s none of that in Moscow unless you’re in the palace.”

  ***

  They made it to the Venetian Lagoon the first night. Ruxandra stood on the shore, looking at the city. The sky was growing light now, and in the distance she saw the church spires, the buildings, both medieval and new, and the grand canals. It made her smile.

  “How long did you live here?” Kade asked.

  “Fifteen years. I attended every ball, every dance, and every concert in the city.” She sighed. “It was glorious.”

  Kade nodded. “Why did you leave?”

  Ruxandra shrugged. “I’d met everyone, seen everyone, and no one who was anyone didn’t know my face. They all started commenting on how well preserved I looked and wondering aloud if I’d sold my soul to maintain my youth. So I left.”

  “You should go back. They are all dead now.”

  “I know.” The sunlight grew brighter, the sun closer to the horizon. “We stay in Mestre for the day. Then tomorrow night we go on.”

  ***

  Two nights later, in Maribor, they hunted.

  They became unnoticed to slip across the long stone bridge over the Drava River. The water rushed past beneath them, the soft sound of it rubbing past the bridge supports acting as counterpoint to the near-silent padding of their bare feet on the stone walkway.

  Ruxandra jumped to the top of the city wall, landing without a sound. The guard, twenty feet away, didn’t notice. Kade jumped and landed clumsily on the parapet beside her. The guard heard him hit and looked. His eyes slid past the vampires. After a moment he went back to looking out over the water. Ruxandra wondered that Kade hadn’t learned to use his marvelous body as well as she had hers. It was one of the greatest pleasures of being a vampire, this speed and strength and precision, what even the Olympic athletes of ancient Greece could only dream of.

  “So now what?” Kade asked, his voice loud in the silence.

  Idiot! Ruxandra spun, talons out, ready to fight the guard.

  The man hadn’t moved. He stared out over the water, not paying attention. Ruxandra spun back, her mouth open.

  “Don’t speak.” Kade put his finger against her lips. Ruxandra glared at him but said nothing. “In one book I learned that vampires could talk in a way that no one hears but other vampires. I can scream in a room full of humans, and not a single one will hear me. But I have not had the opportunity to see if other vampires could hear it until now.”

  Ruxandra
glared harder, then turned away. Well, I guess I deserved that. Thinking he hasn’t been using his body.

  Kade smiled. “I’ll teach you how after we hunt.”

  And with that he jumped down off the wall and into the city.

  Show-off. Ruxandra raised her eyes to the heavens for patience and jumped down after.

  Kade hunted with a ruthless efficiency that surprised Ruxandra. She liked to search for her prey, to hunt the alleys and streets and find the other predators. Sometimes they fought back. Sometimes they begged. It didn’t matter to her.

  Kade, by comparison, walked down the middle of the street, scanning each building as he passed. He stopped and pointed. “There.”

  “What?” Ruxandra looked, saw nothing, and reached out with her mind. Inside she sensed four people, all sad and angry, and three of them in great pain. “Them?”

  “They are dying,” Kade said. “I am sure of it.”

  He walked to the door, knocked, and waited. After his second knock, a young woman opened the door. Her eyes shone, the thin moonlight reflecting off the tears floating there. Dark circles surrounded them, and the face they sat in looked wan and exhausted.

  “Let us in,” Kade commanded.

  Ruxandra had discovered that trick in Vienna. A command from a vampire made a person do almost anything the vampire desired, for a while, at least.

  The woman stepped aside, and Kade went in. Ruxandra followed on his heels. He led them upstairs to a bedroom. Three cots lay side by side. In them two men and a woman lay, their breath coming in ragged gasps, their eyes squeezed tight shut with pain.

  One man was older, with gray in his hair and a wrinkled face. His arm was missing, the stump covered in bloody red bandages. The woman also had gray hair and was missing a leg. The second man was younger, his body strong and his hair deep brown. His chest was misshapen, the ribs beneath the skin bent wrong and poking at the skin.

  “My father and mother and brother,” the young woman whispered. “They were visiting the church, and men were doing work on the wall and the stones tipped over and . . .”

  “We will end their pain,” Kade said. “All of them. Then you can rest. Go downstairs, make tea, and drink it.”

  She obeyed his command and walked out. Kade turned to Ruxandra. “Which one do you want?”

  Ruxandra looked across the three. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then if you’ll excuse me.” Kade knelt down beside the older man and opened his mouth. The fangs hidden in his gums emerged, long and razor sharp and pointed like needles. He leaned close and drove them through the flesh in the man’s neck.

  The older man gasped with shock, his eyes flying open. He cried out once. Then Kade’s hand pressed down on his mouth, silencing him until the last of his life was gone.

  The woman opened her eyes as Kade raised his head, the man’s blood still on his lips. She gasped in a breath.

  Ruxandra crouched over her, hand covering the woman’s mouth, teeth sinking deep in her throat before the woman exhaled. The woman’s blood exploded in her mouth, drowning Ruxandra in ecstasy even as the woman’s body bucked under her hand. She drank deep and fast, pulling the blood from her until not even a drop remained.

  In the midst of it, the woman died.

  Ruxandra raised her head. Kade was kneeling beside the younger man’s cot. His eyes were wide open, too, but he didn’t make a sound. He stared up at Kade, his breath quickening, his eyes never leaving the vampires.

  At last the young man whispered, “You said . . . all of us. Please.”

  Kade smiled. He put his hand over the boy’s mouth and nose, holding them tight. The boy shook, and for a time struggled. Then all movement stopped, and his eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

  Kade stood. “Come. We must find a different place to rest before sunrise.”

  Ruxandra commanded the young woman not to remember them and not to be afraid of the dead upstairs. They died of their wounds. Then they left.

  ***

  In the darkness of a cellar, far from the house, Ruxandra lay back against the stone floor and sighed. She pulled her cloak tight around her body, making a cocoon of it. Across the room she made out Kade’s form in the darkness.

  He hunts well. And chooses his victims well. Maybe he isn’t like Elizabeth.

  The thought gave her some comfort as she drifted off to sleep.

  As they went farther east, Kade insisted on stopping in the cities rather than small towns. It lengthened the journey, but the time wasn’t unpleasant. Kade taught her how to use the vampire voice by pitching her voice at several frequencies at once, none of which the human ear heard. It was fun to sit in cafés and hold conversations without having to lower her voice.

  In the early mornings, before they lay down to sleep, Kade taught her Russian. Ruxandra had discovered when she first arrived in Italy that she could learn a language just from hearing it spoken—she learned Italian in three weeks. However, having someone say something in the new language and then repeat the words in a language she knew doubled how fast she learned.

  He also told her about the magicians.

  “Six of them,” Kade said one morning in a cellar outside of Bratislava. “Michael, Sasha, Victor, Derek, Dimitri, and, of course, the Alchemist.”

  “The who?”

  “The Alchemist. The only woman sorcerer I have met since the Inquisition. A brilliant mind and a great magician. She is certain that within the library is the formula to turn lead into gold, and she is determined to find it.”

  Ruxandra’s eyebrow went up. “You like this woman.”

  “You will, too,” Kade said. “She is . . . a force of personality. But she is brilliant. It was her idea to call the fallen angel.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don’t kill her out of hand,” Kade said. “Please.”

  “I won’t kill her out of hand.” Though that doesn’t mean not at all.

  “We also have two librarians: Kurkov and Eduard. Neither can use magic, but they love the books. When I left, Kurkov was translating five volumes into Russian—all in different languages. He was the one who found the spell to call the fallen angel. Be careful. He is a charmer.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “Do not concern yourself. So are any of them boring?”

  “Derek,” Kade said without hesitating. “Loves nothing but his dinner and magic. An enormous bore on the subject of sturgeon, sour cream, apple pancakes, gingerbread from some provincial city, et cetera. And he is most incensed when his magic doesn’t work.”

  Ruxandra frowned. “Why would it not work?”

  “Human magic is a stitched-together cloth of lies, myths, and half-truths. Very little of it has an effect on people. He is fortunate to be in the library, where most of the spells actually work.”

  “Then how do you know if the spell to summon the angel is real?”

  “We don’t. But we also don’t know that it isn’t. And given that much of the magic in the library works, we have high hopes.”

  He leaned back against the wall. “I suspect that most human magic was never meant to work on humans.”

  Ruxandra felt confused. “Then whom does it work on?”

  “Us, of course. As I discovered at Elizabeth’s castle, human magic works extraordinarily well against vampires. It is almost as if that’s why it exists.”

  Which makes sense, because they can’t beat us physically. Ruxandra thought about it. It was fair, she supposed, but a bit unnerving. “How many spells against vampires did you find in the magicians’ archives?”

  “Very few. Some basic warding spells, which they tested on me. They work. A few protection spells, similar to the ones I used in Castle Csejte. Nothing other than that.”

  Odd. Ruxandra lay back on the floor and put her hands behind her head. You’d think a place with so much vampire lore would have more spells against us.

  ***

  In Kraków they talked about vampires.

  “The library keeps the myths and
legends in one place,” Kade said. “And in addition to the first history, which I told you, they have several other stories of different places our kind rose up and were destroyed.”

  “Like where?”

  “Greece, in the times of the ancients. A vampire stalked the streets of Sparta until they hunted it down. In Egypt a vampire threatened to kill the pharaoh if he did not give her tribute. His magicians murdered her. And there are many, many stories of vampires in other times.”

  “What about our powers?” Ruxandra asked. “You said you were learning them?”

  Kade sighed. “That is an entirely different matter. I found six books, in a language that no one knew. After a year of study to translate a few words, I realized that it must be a written language of the vampires themselves. It took years of work to translate the section that taught me how to use our voice. I expect to learn the rest faster, now that I managed that much, but it will still take a great deal of time.”

  “Time we don’t have,” Ruxandra said.

  “We have forever.”

  “Not before they summon the fallen angel.”

  Kade smiled. “We will have all the time in the world after that.”

  Perhaps. What if she decides to unmake us? Would that be so bad? “I’m going to sleep. We still have three days to Moscow.”

  “Good night, my dear.”

  Her dreams were a confusion of blood, screams, and a beautiful, unearthly woman gazing into her face with a look of unbounded delight. She woke up hungry.

  ***

  Moscow was a city of walls and fear.

  Unlike the cities of Europe, Moscow had not overflowed its walls. Rather, the walls had expanded to encompass the city and part of the countryside beyond as if trying to hide what prosperity lay inside. A few farmhouses lay scattered over the landscape on the approach to the city, each with its own wooden walls, high enough to be difficult for any human to jump over.

  The outer, wooden wall had sheltered slits for archers or riflemen dotting the length of it and wooden towers every twenty yards or so. The wall and the deep ditch in front of it went for miles, encircling the outer city, and even stretching across the rivers—the Moskva and the Yauza, Kade told Ruxandra—that flowed through the city.