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Mircea’s eyes opened. The angler had cloaked himself in shadow, the vampire way of going dim and unnoticed, even while standing in the middle of a crowd. Or, in this case, in the shadow of a portico, while his lure bobbed around the nearby market stalls, drifting idly among the vampires looking for their nightly supper.
Not realizing that, tonight, they were the prey.
Mircea’s focus was drawn to two babies who seemed to be hunting together. That wasn’t unusual in most places, where baby vampires were part of a family and learned the tricks of the trade from their older “siblings.” But here in Venice, most of the young vampires had no family, and were far too skittish to trust anyone.
Here, they hunted alone.
But perhaps these two had been brothers before the Change, and were turned together. Or perhaps they had met on the perilous way to Venice’s vaunted “safety,” and learned to trust. Or perhaps, like Mircea, they had some talent with the mind, which allowed them slightly more control than most their age—
His speculation ended abruptly, when the trap snapped shut. The girl had walked between two market stalls, the vampires trailing close behind her. And when she walked out . . .
She was alone.
Mircea, who had been slouching against the side of the building, trying to look like he was waiting for someone, suddenly stood up straight.
For weeks he’d hunted the hunter, but had yet to answer one simple question: what was happening to all those vampires? They seemed to disappear into thin air, wafting away like the early-morning fog that plagued Venice this time of year. He had never been able to find them, and without them, he had nothing.
Until tonight.
Mircea wandered over, careful to wait until the girl was on the other side of the market, attracting the attention of
another hungry soul. Then idly passed by the space between the stalls, glancing in swiftly before moving on. And frowning.
Because the space was just a space, boring and empty, unless you counted a few pieces of rotten fruit disdained by seller and buyers alike. But not by a small mouse, which was daring to feast in the open. It paused when Mircea walked by, its bright black eyes alert, its tiny hands stilling on its prize.
And then scampered away, taking a half-eaten plum along with it, as Mircea sighed his disappointment—and his frustration. He’d been looking right at her. He couldn’t have been mistaken.
But there was nothing there. As demonstrated when a passing vendor, a bald man with a basket of melons on his head, bustled through, trampling the remaining plum into the pavement. And almost barreling into Mircea on the other side, before muttering a quick “scuxa” as he squeezed past.
Leaving Mircea with a bigger frown and a determination to figure this out. A quick duck behind a bunch of departing vegetable sellers took him between the stalls and out of sight of the angler. And a careful balancing act stopped him just inside the makeshift corridor, allowing him a chance to bend over and carefully examine the stones in front of him, to see if he could find any sign of a trap.
There was none.
Just the pavement, grimy from a hundred boot prints, awaiting the next squall to wash it clean; the sickly sweet smell of the crushed fruit, its juices running like blood in the spaces between the stones; the feel of cracked grit and the rough-smooth-rough surface of the rock under Mircea’s questing hand.
And the shock of someone’s boot making a brutal connection with his backside.
Mircea fell forward into a black emptiness that reached out and grabbed him, pulling him down, down, down—and spitting him out—
Into the boat of the damned.
“Got another one!” somebody called, as Mircea hit the boards like a sack of grain.
“Already? She’s earning her keep tonight!”
“For once,” came the cynical first voice, as muscular legs in dirty hosen walked over Mircea.
He’d landed facedown, suddenly unable to move, even to put his hands out to break his fall. Or to fight when he was roughly grabbed under the armpits a moment later, at the same time that someone else seized his feet. And sent him flying.
“Sleep well,” the first voice said cynically, as Mircea landed on a pile of bodies, and found himself staring down into the open, unseeing eye of a corpse.
He didn’t cry out. Whatever spell had immobilized his body worked on his vocal cords, too. He lay there silently, bleeding from what was likely a broken nose, as several humans thumped back up a ladder.
Leaving him in a makeshift graveyard.
Well, at least he knew what had happened to the vampires, he thought, trying to tamp down panic.
Normally, it would have bubbled up into wild laughter, his usual, completely inappropriate response to impossible situations. It was why he’d been able to lead a retreat of the tattered remnants of his father’s army, after a fool’s invasion of the Turkish lands, before they were butchered like all the rest. The laughing knight, his men had called him, amazed that he seemed so insouciant in the face of danger.
