But a moment later, he found himself floating feetfirst through the doorway, into the small room with the tree. Which had all sorts of shelves nailed to its dead trunk, strewn with strange-looking devices and potion bottles and some things that might be shriveled body parts. Mircea felt himself swallow, and wished he’d had the forethought to have the praetor’s servant write him a letter of introduction, not that the creature looked like he could read. . . .
The man lit a little clay lamp, illuminating the rest of the room. And explaining why the shelves were on the tree. Because virtually every other surface—walls, floor, even part of the ceiling—was stacked with books and scrolls and collections of parchment.
The man toddled over with the lamp, and thrust it in Mircea’s face. And said something in a language Mircea didn’t know, and couldn’t even identify. And coming from a busy port like Venice, he found that disturbing, all on its own. Like everything so far!
“Do . . . do you speak Italian?” he asked, very carefully, so that his still-numb tongue wouldn’t trip over the words.
“Do I speak Italian?” the man mimicked, and flapped his arms around, like a bird. It caused the lamp to flap, too, and spread dancing shadows everywhere. Mircea stared.
And not just because of the strange mockery or whatever it was. But because the house had only one room, and there was no one else in it. Just a pallet on the floor, a small bench by a wall, where food was obviously prepared, and a wild-eyed hermit.
Who, Mircea was coming to suspect, might not be a servant after all, because the place didn’t look like it had one.
Mircea had been warned that all mages were at least a little mad. He should have thought to wonder where on the spectrum someone who chose to live out in the Egyptian desert, in a tree house, might fall. But he hadn’t, and now he was in the man’s power and the sun was soon to rise, and he didn’t know what to do.
But he knew that he couldn’t go home to Dorina empty-handed.
“I have a little girl,” he blurted, and the man—the mage?—who had been fussing about, fixing breakfast, looked up.
“Liar.”
“What?” Mircea blinked at him.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Yes. But . . . but I wasn’t eleven years ago! Almost twelve now, back when I lived in—but that doesn’t matter; you don’t care where I lived—” Get control of yourself, man! He was babbling, but the creature was listening, or he seemed to be, and Mircea didn’t know how long that would be the case. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said, trying again. “But she’s dying. My daughter. And I don’t know how to stop it, and neither does anyone I’ve tried—”
“And who have ye tried?” The man took a swig of something from a bottle.
“I live in Venice, so I went to the great healing houses there first—Piloti, Lachesis, and Jalena—”
“Ha! Filthy poisoners. They deal in death, not life, boy!” The shaggy head shook.
Mircea swallowed. “And then to Zoan of Napoli—he didn’t have another name—but I was told—”
“Oh, he had one. His family stripped it from him after the last scam.” The man took another swig. “Toad doctor.”
“What?”
“Picked it up on his travels. Britain, I believe. Hang a bag containing a live toad around an afflicted person’s neck.”
“And . . . and what does that do?”
An eyebeard went up. “Absolutely nothing. Hence the scam.”
“I—”
“And before that, he was selling wool soaked in olive oil, supposedly from the Mount of Olives. Said to cure all sorts of ailments, when coupled with a long-winded story about a soldier named Longinus—”
“—healed of his blindness by the blood of Christ,” Mircea finished, feeling sick.
The old man cackled. “Got you, did he? Ah well. The old tricks are the best tricks.”
“Do you know anything that aren’t tricks?” Mircea said, more sharply than was wise, given that he still couldn’t control his movements. But he’d spent a small fortune on that damned bit of wool, and that was after searching through half the bars of Naples for the bastard. And all for nothing!
“Oh, perhaps a few things,” the mage said, pausing to sniff something in a pot. Mircea watched him hopefully, until the man shrugged. And spread whatever it was on some bread.
Mircea swallowed his anger, and tried again. “I’ve been to healers in Paris and Rome, Tripoli and Antioch. All for nothing! Nobody knows anything about dhampirs—”
“Dhampirs?” The old man turned around, holding his breakfast. “Ye didn’t say anything about dhampirs!”
“I’m sorry!” Mircea said quickly, because the man was already shaking his head. “Please! I’ll pay anything you say!”
The bread went in the beard, and crunching sounds were heard. “Don’t look like ye have anything to pay. No gold or jewels, clothes’re nothing special, cloak’s been mended—”
“I can get you whatever you want. I will get it—if you help her.”
Some more crunching ensued. It was all he’d done all night, Mircea thought. Sit by—or levitate by, in this case—and watch people eat. People who weren’t in a hurry at all, despite knowing what was at stake!
The man walked over to the tree, and stood musing awhile, before picking out a small bottle. He came over to Mircea. “You’re from Venice, y’say?”
Mircea nodded.
“Good, good. Give this to the little one, three drops at a time, in water. No more, no less. It will calm her fits—for a while.” He tucked it into Mircea’s sleeve, because flappy hand was still flappy.
“Thank you. I—”
The man tutted. “Don’t thank me yet. ’Tis not a cure. For that, I’ll need a little something.”
“What? Anything—”
Black eyes glittered at him through veils of hair. “Some associates of mine have been having trouble getting a certain ingredient. We use it in many of our potions, but it’s scarce as a virgin in a brothel these days—”
“I can get it for you. Just name it—”
“It’s not about a one-time shipment. We can arrange that for ourselves. It’s the trade we want resumed, and right quick. Problem is, this particular ingredient only comes in quantity from one place: Venice. But somebody’s been fiddling with the flow, likely trying to up the price. You get it moving again, and I’ll take care of your girlie—and not by hanging a frog round her neck! How’s that, vampire?”
“I—yes.” Mircea didn’t know much about trade, despite living in a city based on it, but he could find out. He would find out. “Yes, I can do that. What ingredient are you interested in?”
The old mage grinned, showing a mouthful of blackened and half-missing teeth.
And then he told him.
Chapter Twenty
For the second time in less than a day, I woke up to a man in my bed. Only this one was little and uncomfortably hot, and was wearing a pair of Star Wars Underoos, because putting him in something he liked was the only way to keep any clothes on him. And more than SpongeBob, more than Transformers, more than Lucille Ball—don’t ask—Stinky loved Star Wars.
Of course, he’d wanted to be Boba Fett, which had worried me, but lately he’d been leaning more toward Rey. Which opened up a whole different set of questions, but I decided I could figure them out later and started to get up. Only to find myself pinned to the mattress.
“C’mon,” I said sleepily. “Move.”
Nothing. I knew he’d heard me, because those long fingers and toes had just gripped the mattress even tighter, which wasn’t going to work. Because Stinky and I had wrestled before, and I always won. Except for today, apparently, when my best efforts left me right where I’d started.
Of course, I couldn’t do my best work, because something else was snuggled into my right armpit. Or make that someone else, I thought, recognizing Aiden’s silky head. And chubby little baby hand, which had just batted at me to stop moving around, because he’d had a hard night.
You and me both, kid, I thought, wondering what had happened after I zonked out. But all I got was a rush of memories, some crazy, some confusing, all overwhelming. So I shut that shit down, and waited for somebody to come and tell me.
Only no one did.