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And he couldn’t ask if he never got off this pile!
He put his mind onto moving again, anything, anything at all, just so long as it helped his precarious position become a little more so. And when that didn’t work, he shifted his attention to a finger on the hand that lay in front of his face. Trying for a twitch that might send it sliding off the pile and possibly take him along.
He didn’t get it.
Cazzo!
And before he could try again, the two bullyboys were back, along with a number of sailors. They started carting the vampires up the ladder, quickly but carelessly. Nobody seemed to worry if a head hit a beam or struck the ceiling as they were towed through the small opening. No one seemed to mind if half-healed bones were rebroken, or if a protruding, rusty nail snagged an arm, tearing a great gash out of the flesh. No one seemed to care what kind of damage was done, and Mircea knew why.
Abramalin had told him.
Mircea had always wondered why there were so many mages in Venice. He’d understood why the vampires were there: it was a perfect feeding ground, with festival crowds regularly coming and going, most of them too drunk to notice if they lost a little blood. And, before the new consul changed the rules, it had been the only place in Europe where masterless vampires could find refuge.
But why so many mages?
He’d originally put it down to Venice’s size and wealth. A large, well-off populace meant plenty of targets for whatever scam the unscrupulous were running this time, and plenty of customers for the more legitimate practitioners. It was also a busy port, meaning that potion supplies were easy to come by.
One potion supply in particular.
Because, while he’d been right about some of the reasons for the large mage presence, he’d overlooked the biggest draw of all. That wasn’t surprising; it was almost unthinkable to him, even now. But unthinkable or not, the fact remained: the mages were in Venice because the vampires were.
Specifically, the mages were there for vampire bones.
No one knew exactly why, but vampire bones were one of the most potent potion supplies to be found anywhere. Not that they changed a potion; they didn’t seem to have any effect on the intended outcome at all. Except for one.
According to Abramalin, the addition of even a small amount of vampire bone to any potion instantly upped its power by several magnitudes. It could take a minor-level ward and make it virtually impregnable. It could take a simple love spell and bind someone with utter devotion. It could take a spell meant to light a candle and cause a raging inferno.
Put simply, it was a multiplier for magic, many times over. And as such, was worth considerably more than its weight in gold. The supply, however, was somewhat . . . challenging . . . to come by. Masters protected their families with deadly vigor, with even unimportant family members avenged lest anyone think the clan weak. Vampire bones, as magical as they might be, were a rare commodity.
Or they had been, before Venice was established as an open port. The masterless had started flocking to its sandy shores, their few belongings on their backs, desperate hope in their hearts. Hope that was soon shattered by the reality of the place. For most of the creatures who found these shores, it had proven to be merely more of the same: wealth, power, and position were the keys to success in Venice, and they had none of them.
Stubborn types like Mircea pushed through anyway, struggling to scrape a living on the bottom of Venetian society. Or to learn a skill that might endear them to one of its masters, and possibly find them a home. But others, who had pinned their last hopes on the supposed refuge, only to be disappointed again . . .
Well, suffice it to say that there was no shortage of vampire bones in Venice.
They were as plentiful as seashells on the shore, literally washing up on the sand after the daily immolation. Every morning, the wretched and the damned went down to the sea, to await the fearsome embrace of the sun. And every night, the mages and their assistants feasted, courtesy of the haul they’d made after scouring the beaches.
Until the current consul came to power, that is.
And the once-plentiful bones were suddenly less so.
There were still some poor souls, unable to cope with eternity in what they viewed as hell, who were willing to end it all. But for many, the change in regime had made a marked improvement in their situation. There were new safe zones in several areas, including the glittering capitol at Paris. There were rights-of-way being marked out between them, allowing safe-ish travel through jealously guarded territories. And, most of all, there were laws against littering vampires around the landscape that you weren’t planning to be responsible for.
Masters were now expected to account for every child they made, and those who became too careless risked their own lives and positions. So the masterless had less competition finding themselves a family, more places to search for one, and an elevated position even if they chose to remain on their own. For there were jobs where the unaffiliated were preferred, and they were becoming a rare breed.
For the first time, the unwanted hordes of Venice had a real reason to hope.
Of course, for the mages, the shoe was on the other foot. Not only was the supply of masterless vampires drying up, but the ones who did arrive weren’t even killing themselves anymore! The once-plentiful commodity, which had made the great mage families of Venice filthy rich, was suddenly rare once again.
And then things became worse.
Because somebody had started hunting vampires, taking by force what was no longer being given. And worse still, the bastards weren’t sharing. Abramalin had been very clear on that point.
“There’s nothing,” he’d told Mircea, his various beards quivering in indignation. “Not a scrap! The only shipments going out these days are remnants of old stock from some of the bigger traders—at triple the price! But nothing new. Nothing at all!”
“That’s . . . unfortunate,” Mircea had said, trying for diplomacy while wondering if Abramalin was planning to augment his stock with him.
But if the idea had occurred to the old mage, he gave no sign. “Unfortunate? Unfortunate? It’s like having your magic cut down to a tenth of what it was!” he raged. “Everything has to come from us now, doesn’
