fact that some of those dozen may be in Petersburg because they cannot stomach the Kaiser and his aims, as Theiss apparently claims to be. At least we know in which direction we should be looking at the moment . . . if this Theiss is indeed the man Irene saw.’ He folded his gloved hands, relapsed into silent consideration of those muffled figures on coachman’s boxes and footman’s perches, those jewel-box windows.
‘I’ll vet the others.’ Asher drew from his pocket the solid little pack of visiting cards that had been pressed into his hands in the course of the evening, at least half of them bearing scribbled invitations to tea, seances, soirées. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult, the way these people talk about each other. I’m booked for luncheon with the Circle of Astral Light on Friday . . .’
Yet in his heart he knew this was only caution. A clinic on the Samsonievsky Prospect . . . An ideal cover. Is Rissler – Texel – his only henchman? Any of the men in that enormous gold-and-crimson hall might have been German agents also. It was purely chance that I recognized Texel . . .
Would the AA send more than one agent?
They would if they believed Theiss. If they believed they could have at their call a shadow agent whom no sentry could stop, no picket see .
A German doctor here whose studies strike me as remarkably similar, the Lady Irene had written.
As if Asher had spoken her name, instead of merely thought it, he became suddenly conscious of Ysidro’s silence. Without turning from his contemplation of the street, the vampire said, ‘It is absurd to suppose that, were she still able to do so, the Lady would not feel my presence in Petersburg and contrive to get in touch with me. This policeman you spoke to – I commend your accent, by the way – said there had been ashes found, and a woman’s shoe.’
‘In the autumn,’ said Asher quickly. ‘Your friend’s letter was written in February.’
Ysidro turned his head, the tiniest human flex to his brows: evidently surprised, and – surprisingly – touched, at the offer of comfort. ‘Such being the case,’ he said after a time, ‘whose, then? Golenischev spoke of no such loss among his nest.’
‘And, in any event, it wasn’t our pro-German Undead, either. Would Golenischev have lied? Or would the girl have been a fledgling of this Prince Dargomyzhsky they spoke of?’
‘Had she been, I cannot imagine Golenischev would not have thrown the fact at his little rebels last night, in the midst of all that drama and blood. And while we who hunt the night distrust our own kind, ’tis almost unheard of for a vampire to kill another vampire or engineer his death.’
‘Would Lady Eaton have written to you, had one of the Petersburg vampires come to grief? Or of the rebellion in the Petersburg nest?’
The slight tilt of the Spaniard’s head would, in another man, have been sharply raised eyebrows, an elaborate scoff, and – in the case of the fragile old Warden of New College – an upflung hand and a disbelieving cry of, My DEAR Asher—! ‘She had little use for the other vampires of Petersburg,’ said Ysidro, as the breaking ice on the Moyka flashed below them, jeweled by the reflected lights on the bridge. ‘Never in her letters to me did she so much as mention the names of Golenischev’s fledglings. And the letter she sent me at the time of the assassination of the present Tsar’s grandfather made no mention of the event, and she only touched upon the rioting here six years ago insofar as it inconvenienced her hunting.’
His scarred forehead tugged into the tiniest ghost of a frown, and for an instant Asher recalled the rusted harp and the long-dried leather of those book covers, a library of mathematics and scientific theory that had not been updated in the course of nearly a century.
‘As to this traitor to the ranks of the Undead, and whether Golenischev is lying for some reason – and indeed whether this division
‘I’ll vet the others.’ Asher drew from his pocket the solid little pack of visiting cards that had been pressed into his hands in the course of the evening, at least half of them bearing scribbled invitations to tea, seances, soirées. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult, the way these people talk about each other. I’m booked for luncheon with the Circle of Astral Light on Friday . . .’
Yet in his heart he knew this was only caution. A clinic on the Samsonievsky Prospect . . . An ideal cover. Is Rissler – Texel – his only henchman? Any of the men in that enormous gold-and-crimson hall might have been German agents also. It was purely chance that I recognized Texel . . .
Would the AA send more than one agent?
They would if they believed Theiss. If they believed they could have at their call a shadow agent whom no sentry could stop, no picket see .
A German doctor here whose studies strike me as remarkably similar, the Lady Irene had written.
As if Asher had spoken her name, instead of merely thought it, he became suddenly conscious of Ysidro’s silence. Without turning from his contemplation of the street, the vampire said, ‘It is absurd to suppose that, were she still able to do so, the Lady would not feel my presence in Petersburg and contrive to get in touch with me. This policeman you spoke to – I commend your accent, by the way – said there had been ashes found, and a woman’s shoe.’
‘In the autumn,’ said Asher quickly. ‘Your friend’s letter was written in February.’
Ysidro turned his head, the tiniest human flex to his brows: evidently surprised, and – surprisingly – touched, at the offer of comfort. ‘Such being the case,’ he said after a time, ‘whose, then? Golenischev spoke of no such loss among his nest.’
‘And, in any event, it wasn’t our pro-German Undead, either. Would Golenischev have lied? Or would the girl have been a fledgling of this Prince Dargomyzhsky they spoke of?’
‘Had she been, I cannot imagine Golenischev would not have thrown the fact at his little rebels last night, in the midst of all that drama and blood. And while we who hunt the night distrust our own kind, ’tis almost unheard of for a vampire to kill another vampire or engineer his death.’
‘Would Lady Eaton have written to you, had one of the Petersburg vampires come to grief? Or of the rebellion in the Petersburg nest?’
The slight tilt of the Spaniard’s head would, in another man, have been sharply raised eyebrows, an elaborate scoff, and – in the case of the fragile old Warden of New College – an upflung hand and a disbelieving cry of, My DEAR Asher—! ‘She had little use for the other vampires of Petersburg,’ said Ysidro, as the breaking ice on the Moyka flashed below them, jeweled by the reflected lights on the bridge. ‘Never in her letters to me did she so much as mention the names of Golenischev’s fledglings. And the letter she sent me at the time of the assassination of the present Tsar’s grandfather made no mention of the event, and she only touched upon the rioting here six years ago insofar as it inconvenienced her hunting.’
His scarred forehead tugged into the tiniest ghost of a frown, and for an instant Asher recalled the rusted harp and the long-dried leather of those book covers, a library of mathematics and scientific theory that had not been updated in the course of nearly a century.
‘As to this traitor to the ranks of the Undead, and whether Golenischev is lying for some reason – and indeed whether this division
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