"Yes, William Sursur," I said eagerly.
Odette tapped her chin. "He came for you in the crypt that night, didn"t he?" She stared at me for a long moment, and something stirred in her eyes.
"I"ll take you to him," Odette said at last.
"You can really do that?" I asked.
"Yes, I can." Odette sat down again. "But I"ll have to think of a way to get you safely through the village to the castle. Getting you out would have been comparatively easy-we"re close to the border here, though it still wouldn"t have been trouble-free. But getting you in deeper will be more difficult. Some of the creatures that live here are little more than animals. If we took to the streets to get to the castle, they would eventually be on us in a swarm. They"d tear you to pieces."
I began to feel weak with fear. I sank into a rickety chair next to Odette.
There was a crash and a cry from the floor above us, and I heard heavy footsteps walking overhead. I jumped out of my chair and stared up into the darkness above the spiraling staircase.
"What was that?" I asked. "What"s up there, Odette?"
"That"s the border watch," Odette said absent-mindedly. "He"s nothing to worry about. He probably just fell out of his chair."
"The border watch?" I said. "Is he a vampire?"
"Of course."
The footsteps subsided, but I continued to stare upward. I was expecting an angry vampire to come crashing down the stairs at any moment.
"You can relax," Odette said. "That"s just Hadrian."
"Hadrian?"
"Yes. He"s not a very effective guard-that"s why I knew we"d be safe in here."
"What is Hadrian guarding exactly?" I asked.
Odette sighed. "I thought I told you-he"s guarding the border-allegedly. There are three other watchtowers similar to this one in the village. They"re set close to points at which the supernatural barrier meets the unenchanted Wasteland. Hadrian is supposed to watch the border in case someone like you manages to get past the barrier. He"s supposed to detain the intruder and alert the authorities. But intruders are rare, and Hadrian is usually drunk, or sleeping-or both-so very little actual watching goes on."
"He"s drunk?" I asked. "Does alcohol affect vampires?"
"The kind Hadrian favors does. He drinks fermented human blood."
"Oh," I said. "That"s disturbing."
"Yes, it is," Odette replied.
I sat down again, and several quiet minutes pa.s.sed-there were no further noises from overhead. Soon, however, I began to worry about what could be going on outside.
I glanced over at the heavy metal door. "Odette, does everyone in the village know that Hadrian isn"t a very good guard?"
"Yes," Odette said. "I thought you were finally going to be quiet. I knew it was too good to be true."
"If Hadrian is so ineffective, what"s to stop the vampires outside from coming in here to get us?"
"This tower is government property," Odette said. "No one is afraid of Hadrian. But they"re all afraid of the group up at the castle. If anything happens to Hadrian, or if this tower is damaged the perpetrators will be punished-severely. And what const.i.tutes "severe" for a vampire is far more terrible than anything you humans could come up with."
I was silenced, but not entirely rea.s.sured.
After another few moments, Odette stood up.
She held out her hand. "All right. It"s time to go. I haven"t come up with a particularly great plan-in fact-it"s pretty simple. But it"s the best I can do under the circ.u.mstances."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Up," Odette replied.
"Up?" I said.
"Yes, up. We have to get over the castle wall, you know."
"Are you suggesting that we fly?" I asked.
"No-not exactly. We"re going to glide over the roof tops."
"Maybe you can do that," I said, as panic threatened to overwhelm me. "But I don"t think that"s something I can do."
"You don"t have to be able to do it," Odette said smugly. "As you already know I have powers that are beyond those of ordinary vampires."
I did indeed know-Odette had used her powers to break the seal on Gleb Mstislav"s tomb. She was the one who had set Gleb free-so he could come after me.
Odette continued. "I can levitate objects and people-well, people have been a little trickier for me, but as long as you hold onto my hand you should be fine."
I wasn"t sure that I liked the sound of this. "We"re going to go to the castle I saw in the distance, by way of levitation?"
"Yes."
"But that castle looked very far away," I said. "That"s a long way to go off the ground."
"Distances don"t mean so much to us," Odette said. "Our speed makes miles seem like nothing at all. Come on. We should leave now. I want to get this over with quickly."
I stood, and the two of us went up the spiral staircase into the darkness. As we ascended, it became harder for me to see, and I wasn"t very keen on the idea of stumbling and possibly waking Hadrian from his drunken slumbers. So I went slowly, and I found myself placing my feet on each step as quietly as I could.
"What are you doing?" Odette hissed at me from up above. "What"s taking so long?"
"What about Hadrian?" I asked.
"He"s sleeping," she hissed. "I"m sure of it. Besides, he"s harmless."
Odette said he was harmless, but I noticed she was whispering.
I continued to climb the stairs gingerly, and eventually, Odette reached down and hauled me up by my coat.
The room above appeared to be completely dark at first. After a moment, my eyes adjusted to the gloom, and I could see that there was an arched, open window on the far side of the room, through which a little bit of light filtered. I could also just make out a large shape by the window-a man was sitting in a chair with his feet resting on a spindly table that also supported a burned-out stub of candle and an empty bottle. His head was tilted back at an uncomfortable angle.
The man was clearly sleeping, but his bulk was impressive-I didn"t want to meet him when he was awake.
"See?" Odette whispered. "That"s Hadrian, and he"s asleep like I said. In fact, from the looks of things, he"s quite deeply asleep-he"s completely dormant."
We"d been talking about vampires sleeping as if it was something normal, but I realized that I didn"t actually know what that meant.
"Vampires sleep?" I asked.
"After a fashion," Odette replied. "We do have a period of decreased function-which you know about already-you know that creatures of the dark are weak during the day. But we also do need to go through a period of metabolic repair-that"s what sleep is. If you have a body, it will always need to fix itself. But Hadrian"s current state is more than that. We can go into a state of deep dormancy if we are badly injured but still largely intact. Wounds and injuries can heal over a period of weeks, or months, or even years. I suspect that Hadrian"s current state is self-inflicted. Strong drink can induce oblivion in vampires as well as in humans."
Odette pulled me across the room to the window. Then she released her grip on my coat and climbed up onto the spindly table that supported Hadrian"s feet.
She climbed onto the windowsill next and perched there, her shape a dark silhouette in the frame of the window.
"Come on," she hissed.
I climbed onto the table and tried not to glance at Hadrian or the bottle. As I reached the window, Odette"s dark shape vanished, soaring upward.
I gripped the ledge and looked down into the street below. A single dark shape glided down the street and disappeared. I wondered if the figure below had spotted us.
"Hurry up," Odette hissed.
I looked up, and I could see Odette standing on the tower"s pointed roof, a sliver of moon visible just over her shoulder, her red hair fanning out in the wind.
I glanced back down at the street below. It seemed very far away.
"I"m not sure about this," I whispered to Odette. "Are you sure we can"t give the ground route a try?"
Odette crouched down and held out her hand. "I can do this. And so can you. Now get out here."
I climbed onto the ledge and grasped Odette"s hand. Although I shouldn"t have been surprised by Odette"s strength any longer, I was startled by just how easily she hauled me up and set me on my feet.
Up on the roof, the air seemed even colder, and the view was dizzying. A strong wind whipped around us, and I found my boots slipping on the roof"s shingled surface.
I grabbed frantically for Odette, and she set me on my feet again. I noticed for the first time that she was clad only in a filmy black gown-her gauzy sleeves fluttered to the side, leaving her alabaster arms bare. She grasped my hand again, and this time I was sure-I could indeed feel the chill of her skin through the fabric of my gloves.
"Stay calm," Odette ordered. "And don"t let go of my hand. I won"t be able to buoy you up otherwise. Remember that."
I wasn"t likely to forget.
Odette suddenly leaped forward, and my feet left the solid surface of the roof. I felt my body soar out into the open air, and I twisted and turned in panic, trying to grab onto Odette with my free hand, trying to grab onto anything that would break the fall that was sure to come.
A horrible thought popped into my head.
Had Odette brought me out here to kill me?
All she had to do was let me drop-I imagined she could save herself pretty easily.
Had I been, as Odette had said not so long ago, too trusting?
Of course, Odette could have killed me at any point while we were sitting in Hadrian"s tower, or she could have done nothing earlier and simply let Veronika kill me.
These thoughts pa.s.sed through my mind quickly, and just as quickly, I decided I could trust my cousin. Though panic still coursed through my body as we continued to soar through the air, I tried to quiet my mind, and I clung more tightly to Odette.
We dropped suddenly and landed on the rooftop of a nearby house.
"Stop wriggling so much," Odette said impatiently. "You"re going to be fine-for now. Getting to the castle is the easier part. Things will get much harder once we get to the castle."
Odette took off again, and though I was expecting the feeling of weightlessness that followed this time, it was still terrifying.
Once again, I found myself twisting in the air, flailing wildly for something to grab onto.
Odette brought us to rest on another rooftop.
"Seriously, stop wriggling," she said.
Before I had quite caught my breath, we were off again, and we soared from rooftop to rooftop with dizzying speed.
After several more successful landings, I began to relax just a little bit. I managed to raise my eyes and look around when we came to our next stop, and I realized that we had halved the distance to the castle. The immense stone structure now loomed much closer, and I could see that its narrow windows were illuminated by a curiously subdued silver light.
"Why is everything so dark around here?" I asked.
"It is night," Odette replied. "And as you can perhaps imagine, vampires have an uneasy relationship with the light. Too much of it is hard on our keen senses-that"s one of the reasons why we don"t like the sun. The sun"s harsh light floods our eyes, and its heat can be too much for our skin. There are disadvantages in having super-refined senses. But we do need some light to see by-we can"t live in complete and total darkness. So, it might look dark around here to you, but to me it"s as bright as day."
Without warning, Odette grabbed my hand again, and once more we took off into the night.
After several more jumps, Odette brought us to rest on a broad roof with a gentle slope. We were perhaps a quarter mile from the castle, and in the dim light I could see there was a lot of activity along the castle"s parapet wall-there were men in what looked like leather armor positioning themselves into the crenellations of the parapet. The men seemed to have spotted us, and each one trained a weapon on us.
"Are those crossbows?" I asked, squinting.
"Yes. They know we"ve been heading toward the castle, and vampires are a suspicious group. I told you this would be the hard part."
"Are they going to kill us?" I asked.
"They"re certainly going to try," Odette replied.
"But they don"t know why we"re here," I protested. "Isn"t there someone we could talk to? Some sort of gate official, or something like that?"
"Vampires do not look for diplomatic solutions," Odette said. "And they"re under more strain than usual at the castle these days-they"re under imminent threat of invasion. No doubt we look like spies."
"What do you mean by "imminent threat of invasion"?" I asked, startled.
"I"m sure William will explain it to you," Odette said. "And I"m sure he"ll keep the others from killing you once we find him."
Odette stood up. "I want you to give him a message from me. Tell him that they"re planning to attack the human village during the Firebird Festival."
"Who are "they"?"
"The hybrid army. This information comes from a very good source."