It was, thank heavens, very simple to buy tickets to Buda-Pesth. In fact, Lou wondered if she should use the helpful travel agent to book tickets through to Paris, and then New York, for all five of them. But in the end, she only bought tickets for herself and Dacia to get to Hungary. She would rely on her father to do the rest, and for the first time in her life she worried that he might let her down.
She was having rather mixed feelings about her father, now that she had more time to think. He had left her with Lady Ioana despite knowing that something terrible was to happen. And how many of the particulars did he know? Did he expect her to turn into a bat, as all the others had? Did that disgust him? But that meant he had to know what her mother was, and her father had always loved her mother deeply.
Had his life been threatened? And the twins? Since they had not inherited the Florescu power, as Aunt Kate claimed, Lou knew that Lady Ioana would hardly scruple to get rid of them. She would as soon kill Radu as look at him, and he was of the Claw, after all.
And she’d killed the others. Those who were the Smoke. Infants.
She put it out of her mind so that she wouldn’t start to cry right there on the street.
No wonder it had been so momentous when Lou’s mother and Aunt Ileana had married outside the family, even if they had done it at the urging of Lady Ioana. How to explain your family to your spouse? She wondered, then, if her mother really had. Her parents had seemed very much in love until they had arrived in Romania . . . had her mother kept the secret all these years, only to spring it on her husband now that she was not entirely human?
Lou determined to give her father the benefit of the doubt until she heard his side of the story. It could not have been a comfortable thing, to find out that your wife and daughter were monsters. Every so often Lou saw the image of her mother transforming in her mind, and her breath would catch and her steps would falter. She wondered if it would have been easier if her mother had been the Claw. Lou was terrified of bats, and to see her mother’s body shrink and twist, sprouting wings . . . She shuddered.
All the same, Lou didn’t shy away from the word monster the way Dacia did. It was the simplest way to describe what they were. They could change their shape and become something other. Was that not an excellent definition of a monster? It wasn’t something that she’d always dreamed of being called, of course, but really, what was the point in fighting it now? Why not embrace it? It made her feel powerful, and beautiful, and special.
If only she could convince Dacia to feel the same way . . .
The carriage pulled up to the house on Rua Silvestre and Lou got out, busily thinking of ways to cheer up Dacia. Seeing Lord Johnny again wouldn’t do the trick, it would only make her worse. But Will Carver was another story. Yes, Lou decided. She would invite Will Carver to dinner. He would see that they were well, they would tell him that Mihai was not a vampire and that they had cut off contact with the Draculas, and he would return to his usual sketching and flirting with Dacia. Flirting with him was sure to be a good tonic for her cousin. And they really ought to call on the Szekelys tomorrow, before they left. That might be even better.
She was halfway across the parquet floor of the front hall when she knew something was wrong. Lou froze, head cocked to one side, and listened.
Dacia had been asleep when she left, but the house was still too quiet. There were no footmen, other than the one who had escorted her to the travel agent’s office. There were no maids bustling about, drawing the curtains against the setting sun, or offering to take her gloves and hat.
“Nadia!” Lou did her own best impression of Aunt Kate. It was not as good as Dacia’s, but it worked well enough. “Nadia, where are you?” She called up the stairs, but with control so that her voice didn’t shriek.
There was a rustle, and then the girl came from the direction of the kitchen.
“Yes, miss?”
Lou looked her over. Nadia had her hands clasped demurely in front of her starched white apron, and a smug smile on her face. She was hiding something.
“Out with it,” Lou said, once again evoking Aunt Kate at her frostiest.
Tossing her hair, Nadia stuck her lower lip out. “I don’t know why you’re taking that tone with me, miss. I haven’t done anything.”
The older sister of two terrible little brothers, Lou knew better than to get into this game. “Well, if you haven’t done anything, who has?”
Shrugging, Nadia said, “It’s nothing to worry about. Mr. Radu arrived.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“And where is Mr. Radu now?”
“I don’t know,” Nadia said.
“Fine. Where is Dacia?”
“With Mr. Radu.”
“She wasn’t dressed, and I haven’t been gone that long!”
Nadia just shrugged again.
Lou left the infuriating girl behind and ran up the stairs, but she stopped halfway up when she heard Nadia’s answer.
“I told you I don’t know where they went, but Prince Mattias was driving.”
“Prince Mattias . . . ?” Nadia taunted. “Prince Mattias Dracula? Prince Mihai’s uncle.”
Lou flew back down the stairs and snatched her hat and gloves back from the maid. Calling out for the footmen, she ordered the carriage brought back around. While she was pulling her gloves back on, she turned on Nadia.
“You don’t have any idea where they went?”
“No, miss.”
“You helped Dacia to dress, and didn’t say or hear anything?” Lou had never wanted to shake someone so badly in her life.
“She didn’t get dressed, miss.” This was the real thrill, at least to Nadia. Her glee over the scandal was plain on her face. “Went out in her underthings.”
“If anything has happened to Dacia, I’m going to leave you tied up in the forest for the wolves to find,” Lou said to her, and watched the other girl’s face pale. “Are you certain that you don’t know anything more useful?”
“No, miss,” came the chastened reply. “They only left half an hour ago, though.”
“They could be anywhere,” Lou moaned.
When the carriage pulled into the front of the house, she hurried toward it and pulled herself inside without any assistance. Then she sat there, numb. Where could Dacia be? How would she find her? She didn’t even know what the carriage they had taken looked like. Did it belong to the Dracula family, or the Florescus?
When the coachman asked for the third time where she wanted to go, she gave him the hotel address that Lord Johnny had given her. They would surely know how to find Mihai, she thought, blushing a little. She had done her best not to be embarrassed before, but for some reason, fully dressed in a crisp French walking gown, she could not stop thinking about how she had ordered Mr. Arkady to put his coat on her legs.
Concern for Dacia overruled Lou’s feelings, and when she alighted at the hotel she was back on the warpath. She marched into the lobby, a footman trailing behind her, and told the clerk at the main desk that she needed to speak with Lord John Harcastle and Mr. Theodore Arkady right away.
“Theophilus,” the man said, staring at her.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mr. Arkady. Theophilus Arkady. Not Theodore.” He quailed a little at her expression. “I will just send them both a message. Whom shall I say is here to see them?
“The Smoke,” Lou said. “I will be in the restaurant.”
She sailed into the very fine restaurant, was immediately seated by the maître d’, and ordered tea and cakes for three. Inwardly, she felt a clock ticking away, reminding her of how much time was passing. But she could hardly march into Lord Johnny’s hotel room, and this wasn’t something she wished to discuss in the middle of a hotel lobby.
To her gratification, the tea, the cakes, and the two gentlemen arrived in only a pair of minutes. The gentlemen appeared surprised by her presence; she supposed that because of her message they hadn’t known whom to expect, but they hid it well until the waiter had left the table. Lou shook her napkin out, placed it in her lap, poured them all tea, took a cake, and then looked seriously at Lord Johnny.
“Radu and Prince Mattias Dracula have abducted Dacia,” she said in a low voice.
Lord Johnny, who had just raised his teacup to his lips, nearly spit tea across the table at her. At the last moment, he turned his head, and merely choked. Mr. Arkady slapped him on the back, his brows drawn together.
“You are certain of this?” he asked, while his companion recovered and wiped his mouth and streaming eyes with his own napkin.
“Where did they take her?” Lord Johnny asked before Lou could answer. “When did this happen?”
“I don’t know where,” Lou said, smiling brightly at a passing waiter as she stirred sugar into her tea.
Lou had no idea how far the influence of the Dracula family extended. Anyone here could be a cousin, a friend, or even a spy for Mihai. How well known were Lord Johnny and Mr. Arkady? Were the Draculas watching them?
“It was about an hour ago,” she told them. “Radu went into the house on Rua Silvestre and took Dacia. She was upstairs sleeping. Prince Mattias was driving the carriage. I was out, and didn’t know until half an hour after they had left.”
“Why would Radu take her? Why is he helping them?” Lord Johnny demanded.
It galled Lou to say it, because she loved Radu . . . or the person she had known as Radu, the cousin who had written them playful letters. But that cousin was gone, she told herself.
“Radu is a loyal member of the Florescu family,” Lou said, and couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “As you told us yourself: the Florescus exist to aid the Dracula family. If Prince Mihai ordered Radu to bring him Dacia, Radu would do it. And he did. Now we have to find out where they’ve gone.”
“Your message said . . . Are you really the Smoke?” Mr. Arkady was looking at her with great admiration.
Lord Johnny was not, however. “She was only trying to get our attention, Theo,” he said. “Miss Neulander cannot possibly be—”
“Yes, I am.” Lou interrupted him. “That is why I was . . . undressed when you called on us earlier. I had just transformed in order to scare away Prince Mihai.”
“You are the first Smoke in generations, then,” Mr. Arkady said eagerly. “I should very much like to see it. It is a rare gift and—”
“It is not a gift!” Lord Johnny’s voice rose. Lou shushed him, and he looked around, abashed. “I’m sorry. But this is a terrible thing! You have my deepest sympathies! It is no wonder that poor Miss Vreeholt was so traumatized this morning seeing you . . .” His voice trailed away as the reality struck him. “Dacia didn’t . . . did Dacia . . . is she . . . ?”
“The Claw,” said Lou tartly. “And the queen of the pack, moreover. She challenged our aunt Kate, and won.”
“How amazing!” Mr. Arkady looked as though he might applaud. Then his brow clouded. “Of course, that gives Mihai all the more incentive to marry her. Any of your relations whose loyalty is more for the Florescu family than the Dracula will still follow Dacia.”
“How will we find her?” The feeling of a clock ticking in her head became even stronger. She had to get Dacia out of there—wherever there was—before Prince Mihai forced her into marriage or worse.
“We’ll send a message to the Dracula town house,” Lord Johnny said. Whatever disgust he might be feeling at finding out about Dacia and Lou was quickly swept aside, to Lou’s relief. “Find out if Mihai is at home to callers.”
“Would they leave Bucharest, do you think?” Mr. Arkady was crumbling a cake between his long fingers. “Take her to his family estate? The castle here is in pieces, but Targoviste, perhaps.”
“There’s a castle in Bucharest?” Lou was startled. She’d spent very little time here, but surely she would have noticed a castle rising up among the buildings!
“As I said, it’s in pieces,” Mr. Arkady repeated, not unkindly. “It was Tepes’s residence, but all that’s left is a few pillars and the cellars. Another day I would love to show it to you.”
Lord Johnny frowned at him. “Yes. A day when Dacia hasn’t been abducted!”
Lou and Mr. Arkady shared a chastened look.
“If they are going to Targoviste, they will still be on the road,” Lord Johnny said. “Unless they went to Snagov . . . surely not.” But his eyes flashed at the thought and he and Mr. Arkady looked even more tense.
“What’s Snagov?” Lou had to ask twice before they remembered that she was there.
“A church, on an island,” Mr. Arkady said tersely. “Built by the Dracula family. It’s very isolated.”
“A church?” Lou felt like a plucked harp string. If Mihai had had Dacia taken directly to a church . . . her head reeled.
Then something happened.
“So high up,” she murmured. A sudden vision of a copper drainpipe came to her, and the feeling of a rain-laden breeze touching her bare shoulders. “I don’t think that will hold my weight . . .”
She looked up and realized that both gentlemen were staring at her.
“Are you quite well?” Mr. Arkady half rose, concerned.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me! I suddenly felt faint . . . well, I felt as though I were on the roof of a building, and I—” She stopped babbling.
Lord Johnny reached across the table and gripped her hand. “Did you suddenly feel faint, or did you suddenly feel . . . Dacia?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re very close to your cousin. Did you feel like you were seeing something else? Like you were in another room, or another person? Have you ever felt like this before?”
“What do you mean? I—I haven’t—” Lou stopped.
Hadn’t she? Hadn’t she always known when Dacia was happy or sad? And those flashes, like being dizzy, only what she was seeing was some other room. Or a roof, in this case.
“Miss Neulander,” Lord Johnny said. “We cannot begin to understand what powers you might have in addition to your . . . transformative gift. You and your cousin are very close, as close as sisters, and both very powerful.” He looked at her, urging her to understand.
“So you think that I just saw what Dacia was seeing?”
“It’s very possible,” Lord Johnny said.
“Well, she wasn’t in a carriage,” Lou said. “And she wasn’t in a church.”
“Come upstairs with us, Miss Neulander,” Lord Johnny said, rising. “And we’ll find out where she was . . . is.”
Smardan Street, Nr. 11, Bucuresti
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Dacia Vreeholt, and I am being held against my will on the top floor of the Rembrandt Hotel. I have been imprisoned here by the will of Prince Mihai Dracula, with his uncle, Prince Mattias Dracula, and my own cousin Radu Florescu acting as his accomplices. I beg of you to help in my rescue by giving this note to the police. Lord Johnathan Harcastle, at the Hotel Bucharest, may also be of assistance, as will my cousin Maria Louisa Neulander of Nr. 32 Rua Silvestre.
I can offer a generous reward in return for my safety and freedom.
Signed,
Miss Dacia Vreeholt